


Sign of the Times

by dsrobertson



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - World War II, French Resistance, M/M, Mentions of Holocaust, Minor Character Death, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 16:06:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 70,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19066012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsrobertson/pseuds/dsrobertson
Summary: Casablanca-ish AU.Charles Xavier meets Erik Lehnsherr in Paris, 1937. They spend the next two years with one another, stupid in-love, until war comes heavy in September 1939. Erik leaves for Poland and the Resistance movement there, promising to return. Charles is left in Paris, where Nazi jackboots march in, Summer of 1940. He becomes a member of the underground French Resistance, publishing illegal newsletters, leaflets, until news comes through in February 1942: Erik is dead. Charles throws himself into more dangerous work, meeting with Communists, helping derail a German train, and he does too much, goes too far. His friends find him safe passage out of France, out across the Mediterranean, to Morocco, Casablanca. It is here he finds Erik, alive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hoooo boy. I've been writing this/trying to write this since March 2016 and it's finally done and i feel like i'm losing my mind! anyway. I've tried to make this as historically accurate as possible, have done A Lot of research, but obviously this is fan-fiction so. pls take some aspects with a pinch of salt. I wanna add that the Resistance in Paris didn't really start to do anything more than journalistic work until like, late 1942, but, here we are. Here it is! it hasn't been read over by anyone who isn't me so any and all mistakes are mine. I hope you enjoy it and i'm sad to say goodbye to it, despite the fact it's made me want to scream for over 3 years. oh, also, i have no idea why ao3 has made the spaces between paragraphs so big, but, that just how it be. thank you! Emma.

**PART ONE**

**1937-1938**

  1. _Paris, France. September 1937._



The first time is a Friday. He’s been here near three months now.

 

He sits at the bar, head in his hand. There’s the stink of cigarette smoke through the place— cigars, cigarillos. It has him coughing, the thick of it catching at the back if his throat, fog of it hanging heavy like cataracts.

 

It’s busier than usual, tables crowded with chairs; people stand, lean against walls.

 

Charles watches as Ruth stands from her seat behind the piano. She’s beautiful, what he’d expected of Paris, City of Light, but he can’t understand what she’s saying. She speaks too fast, too French.

 

His ears catch none of it, couldn’t even if he were sober, her voice a muddle of vowels, quick, and she’s talking to the crowd, everyone turned to look at her; smiles soft with alcohol. Her hair is curled and her eyes are bright.

 

Charles is leant on an elbow, drink in other hand, twisted around on his stool to see. He watches, straightens as a man with a violin stands up, walks out of the people and the tables. The man grins, ducks his head, holds his bow in his left hand. A round of applause spreads its way around the room.

 

Charles frowns to himself. He can’t ask Gabrielle, who’s this, what’s going on, she’s still too busy serving drinks, cleaning glasses.

 

He keeps his eye on the violinist. Even across the floor, above the heads of customers, on the backs of four empty glasses, Charles can see his good looks. Tall, white shirt, no tie.

 

Paris offers him handsome men in handfuls. A look-don’t-touch tease. He’s slept with three in the two months he’s had the flat upstairs. Two Parisians and a Slovak. The language barrier was walked around with raised eyebrows, crude gestures; touches and noises in his bedroom.

 

Ruth starts playing, alone, and Charles hasn’t heard this one. She’s never played this one with him here.

 

He watches the man with the violin as he lifts it under his chin, starts to play.

 

Charles cocks his head, glass held to his mouth, watches the man’s fingers move, eyebrows furrow, twitch of the bow back and forth, song a fast-paced melancholy that settles in him.

 

Charles claps with the rest of them when it comes to an end, abrupt.

 

 

 

 

 

They play for twenty minutes. Each song gets an applause and there’s sweaty shiny on the violinist’s forehead.

 

The saloon quietens down when the music ends, Ruth moving out from the piano and onto dealing poker at the table in the corner, Gabrielle serving last drinks, last orders. Charles leans his elbows on the bar top, chin in one hand, other holding his book open. He stares at the page. He can’t concentrate, has read the last sentence over and over until it means nothing to him, eyes blurry with gin.

 

There’s the tap of knuckles on the bar, opposite end to Charles.

 

“Hey, Haller. _Tu sais ce que je veux. Whisky. Pas de glace_.”

 

It’s the violinist. Charles tilts his head. The man is grinning, big teeth in a big wide mouth as Gabrielle shakes her head, says something with half a sneer that Charles doesn’t catch, doesn’t understand.

 

He waits for her to serve the violinist. His eyes move from her to the man’s forearms, how the muscles jump as his hands tighten and loosen, fingers linked together.

 

Charles lifts a hand. “Gabrielle,” he says. She walks to him, hair shifting where it’s cut blunt to her chin.

 

“Oui, Charles?”

 

Her voice is bored, tired; she always gets this way near closing time, can’t wait to get home, to bed, to sleep. He can’t blame her.

 

He gives a tiny jerk of his head, subtle. Subtle as he can be with the liquor warm in him.

 

“Who’s that?” he asks. His fingers fidget with the edges of his book. Gabrielle raises an eyebrow. Her smirk is slow. She’s had an idea; a cat seen a mouse. She lifts a finger.

 

Charles goes to stop her, says, “wait,” but she’s walking away, few steps down the bar, back to the violinist.

 

The language barrier has seen him shyer. Back in London, back in the queer bars, he’d knock back a drink and be good for the night, could talk to anyone, fearless. Here it’s harder, despite the legality of it. He doesn’t know who’s who or who’s what. Those last three were difficult enough, a game of charades, three words, are you queer?

 

He scratches at the side of his neck, nerves pricking at him, can feel eyes on him.

 

Next thing he knows the violinist is pulling up the stool beside him, drink in his hand, and Charles sees the pads of his fingers, calloused and peeling from violin strings. He looks Charles up and down. Charles straightens his back.

 

He tries his best accent, still God awful, says, “Salut.”

 

The man nods. “Salut,” he says. He’s handsome. There’s something peculiar about it. Good looking in the old way, the stern way; the Michelangelo way, harsh lines in the straightness of his eyebrows, his mouth. But he’s got big eyes. “You’re British.”

 

Charles chews at the inside of his lip, feels confidence stirring, familiar ground with the English, no need for hand gestures and pointed fingers.

 

He nods, says, “Yes.” He closes his book, wasn’t getting far with it, anyways, and he says, “I’m Charles.”

 

He gets a hum. The man picks up the book, tilts it towards him.

 

“Wilde,” he says. He sets it flat, nudges it back. “Interesting choice. Erik.”

 

He’s not French. He speaks his English with a different accent. Charles smiles.

 

“Nice to meet you,” he says. “You play the violin very well. Have you done it long?”

 

Erik nods. “Since I was a kid,” he says. He knocks back his drink, says, “Is what Gabrielle told me correct?”

 

Charles frowns. His eyes flick to Gabrielle.

 

“That depends,” he says. He looks back. “What did she say?”

 

Erik sets his glass on the bar, moves to stand, one foot on the floor, other on the rest of the stool. He’s taller than Charles. Maybe half a head.

 

“That you’re queer and have her old flat upstairs,” he says.

 

“Oh,” Charles says. There’s no giveaway on Erik’s face, poker flat. Charles nods, unsure, says, “Yes, that’s— what she said is correct.”

 

It gets him a smirk, slow, quirk at one side of the mouth.

 

“Forgive the presumptuousness,” Erik says. Charles looks him up and down, the length of his torso, the collarbones at the open neck of his shirt. “But would you like to go upstairs?”

 

 

 

 

 

The bed creaks with the weight of them, their movements. There’s grabbing, pulling, Charles’ eyes scrunched, grin on his face as Erik fights with the buttons of his shirt, pulls the tails of it from Charles’ trousers. His hands are big and warm on Charles’ stomach.

 

“Here,” Charles says. He grabs at the back of Erik’s neck, pulls him down.

 

Their noses bump, Erik’s mouth opening, nails scratching lines into Charles’ chest, fingers dragging up to the base of his throat. Charles hooks a leg over Erik’s waist.

 

His cock his hot between his thighs, tight knot in his groin; the way Erik kisses has him wanting more, the heavy push of his mouth, the wetness, the heat of it; it has Charles’ fist clenching in hair, breath short through his nose, warm, boneless.

 

He closes his eyes; opens them when Erik pulls back, mouths still close, panting against each other.

 

“What do you want?” Erik asks. The movement of his lips moves Charles’ in turn. His violin fingers run the length of Charles’ torso. “Just tell me what you need,” he says. “I’ll give it to you.” He says, “I have to go soon.”

 

Charles breathes. There’s sweat at his back, shirt sticking to him.

 

He blinks, once, looks back up to big eyes.

 

“Touch me,” he says. His back arches, hips shifting up. Erik sits back on his haunches, Charles’ hand coming down from his neck, sliding over the flatness of his chest, the bump of a nipple through his shirt. “My cock. Touch me, please.”

 

Erik nods. He dips back down to kiss, hands going to Charles’ trousers, and Charles hums, lifts his head into it before Erik moves, mouth trailing over Charles’ chin, his jaw, his neck. Charles’ hands go back to Erik’s hair, soft where it’s combed back.

 

He moans, head pushing into the pillow, Erik’s fist shoved in his underwear, curled around his dick. There’s the blunt point of teeth at Charles’ collarbone.

 

Charles whines, breath pushing through his nose. Erik’s hand is tight, big enough to have almost all of Charles’ cock in its warmth, and Charles’ toes curl as he slicks up, down, too slow to be anything but a tease; hot press of Erik’s tongue leaving cool wetness down his chest.

 

He bucks his hips, choked noise at his throat as Erik bites, sucks at a nipple.

 

Charles holds Erik’s head in place, eyes shut as he feels Erik leave his mark, teeth sharp. He groans as Erik’s hand squeezes, as he speeds up, fast jerks of his fist between them. His voice is low as he swears, says, “Fuck.”

 

He feels his body running warm. There’s the uncomfortable itch of sweat at his hairline hidden behind the aching pleasure at his groin; the sting at his chest.

 

His eyes screw shut, mouth open in a gormless _O_ , like a shock, a surprise, and one of his hands drops to crease in the bedsheets. Erik pulls off from his chest, and Charles looks to see him, straight-backed, watching his hand tug at Charles’ cock, dark red head of it pushing up between the circle of his fingers. Charles bites at his lip, knows how thin these walls are.

 

He doesn’t take long to come. Erik’s spare hand flattens down over his belly, stretches up to rub over his peaked nipple.

 

There’s the sounds of their breathing, murmurs of voices downstairs, and Charles can’t help himself, moans dragging out, stomaching caving in, chest tight as Erik works him, lets him thrust upwards into his fist, tight, tightening at the base, and Charles catches the look on Erik’s face, hungry.

 

He closes his eyes. The knot between his thighs tightens as his head tips back.

 

It’s always the same when he comes, staccato moans, _oh_ , _oh_ , choked out of him, and it has Erik bending down to kiss him, shut him up, come warm where it spills over onto his stomach, Erik’s fingers.

 

He digs his nails into Erik’s shoulder blades, scratching through the cotton.

 

He breathes; drops back into the pillows. He feels himself unwind. He opens his eyes to a grin. He grins back.

 

 

 

 

 

Charles convinces him to stay; long enough to have his hands on Erik’s bare chest, Erik’s trousers and underwear tugged halfway down his thighs, cock thick, curved up to his belly. There’s an odd mark at his neck from the violin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. October 1937._



There’s no sign of him for the next two weeks. Charles sits at the bar, waits, but he doesn’t come.

 

He’s sat poking at his lunch, rubbing the end of a piece of bread in a knob of butter.

 

The place is a bar at night, a café at midday. There are white marks on wood tables from wet glasses; brown marks on blue cushions from coffees. There’s a stain at one wall where someone’s spilt their cocktail.

 

He asks the girls about him. He’s Erik Lehnsherr, is what they say— journalist, came to Paris last year. Stayed at Madame’s B&B until he found his own place; just as Charles did a few months back. And they’re unsure where he is. Maybe Vienna, they say. Maybe not.

 

“He’s been in Prague before,” Ruth says. She’s smoking, one elbow on one of the round tables, feet up on the seat opposite her.

 

Gabrielle hums. They’ve closed for the afternoon, and she’s sweeping up crumbs.

 

“I think he mentioned Salzburg,” she says.

 

“Brave of him.” Ruth stubs out her cigarette. “Closer to the Fatherland than I’d like to be.”

 

 

 

 

 

He gets up early, does everyday, except Saturdays and Mondays, no lunch on Saturdays, no bar open Sundays, and he has to drag himself out of bed. He’ll crawl back into it when he’s done cleaning, read a book, maybe, wander ‘round the city come afternoon. The Bouquinistes by the river sell him books he can’t read; Shakespeare and Company on the rue de l’Odéon sell him books he can read.

 

When he was younger, imagining what he’d be when he was older, he was never a cleaner. Unclogging a sink that someone has vomited in; mopping up yellow tracks where men have missed their marks. He doesn’t much mind wiping the spilt drinks in the bar, the ashes that haven’t made it to their trays— it’s the bathrooms he hates. There’s no glamour to a saloon at eight in the morning. Not even in Paris.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, SAT 9 OCT]

_Walked around le Marais again. Tried to sketch l’Hôtel de Ville. Didn’t go well. Haven’t been to the zoological gardens in a while— may go in the next week or so. Haven’t seen Erik yet. Maybe it’s the fact he speaks English, is queer, I want to see him again. Maybe it is his good looks. I hope to see him soon._

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a Monday this time. It isn’t busy. Charles is long done with Wilde by now, is reading James Joyce. The noise doesn’t bother him.

 

He hears him asking for a drink. Charles lifts his head.

 

“Hey,” he says. Erik turns. His mouth quirks. He looks tired.

 

“Hey,” he says. He thanks Gabrielle for the drink, whisky, again, and he says something in French. Charles is getting better, but he doesn’t catch it. He should have thought through coming to a country whose language he cannot speak.

 

Erik moves over to him, few steps it takes along the side of the bar. Charles smiles.

 

“How have you been?”

 

Erik shrugs. He doesn’t sit on one of the stools. “Good,” he says. He swirls his glass. “You?”

 

Charles nods. He hasn’t had anything to drink yet. He’s trying to cut back. Living above a saloon isn’t doing anything for his passed-down almost-alcoholism.

 

“Good,” he says. “I’ve been fine. Bored, but. I’ve been good.”

 

Erik hums. He looks down to Charles’ book. He lifts a hand to it— Charles edges it towards him.

 

“I read this when I was at university,” he says. He huffs, pushes it back to Charles. Charles sees the ink on his fingers, black stains in the grains of prints, tucked up under his nails. A journalist. “Too long,” Erik says. He nods at it. “The book.”

 

Charles flips through the pages. He can’t disagree. He’s stopped and started with it a few times now. He purses his lips.

 

“Want to go upstairs?”

 

 

 

 

 

The B&B he’d stayed at for the first month is a ten-minute walk from the bar. Chambre d’hôtes Mouret.

 

He’d spent an hour or so stumbling through the city, late June, big fat suitcase in his hand, big fat satchel over each shoulder. The boat made him sick and the train made him sleepy. The rain woke him up, soaked him through.

 

He’d found the B&B, big townhouse, cream, flowers on the doorstep, ivy crawling up one side, and the relief he’d felt at finding Madame Mouret, English-speaking, was enough to have him in a king-size bed half an hour later.

 

Madame hands him the sack of potatoes, knife on the side by the sink. It’s all he’s good for, peeling things— carrots, potatoes. He comes by at least once a week to help out.

 

Madame turns to him, hands dusting flour off on her apron. She says, “Are you staying for dinner?”

 

Charles hums. He peels a potato, careful of his fingers, brown skin of it falling into the water of the sink. He’s learnt his lesson by now; fingertips still pink from cuts and nicks.

 

“I think so,” he says. All that’s left in his kitchen is half a baguette, some soft cheese he doesn’t much like, some cold sliced beef. There’s a stale croissant in the breadbin he could warm up, put butter on.

 

“You think so,” Madame says. She looks to him. “Does that mean yes?”

 

Charles smiles. He nods. “Yes,” he says. She mothers him. All her kids flew the nest years ago. Her husband died in the war. “If you’ll have me.”

 

 

 

 

 

There are market stalls all over the city. Madame took him the day after he arrived; needed food for the days’ lunch, dinner. She taught him how to say beef, potatoes, chicken. He likes the word for potato. _Pomme de terre_. Apple of the ground. Earth apple. _Des carottes_ , _des oignons_. There’s a stall that sells coffees from around the world. Another sells spices.

 

She’s sent him off with a list, today. Told him how to pronounce each and every word, who to ask; Monsieur Reno with the round glasses, the grey beard, Madame Brochet with the flower pinned to her dress, the ten different types of cheese.

 

He mostly goes to the same places over and over, the market, the zoological gardens, the familiar streets of the third arrondissement. He loves the buildings here, looking at them, sketching them. It’s how he spends his time. It’s simpler here than it ever was in London, in Oxford. Sometimes he misses the excitement of rallies. He’s seen groups of students here, stood in circles, holding banners, shouting through cupped hands.

 

Ruth told him the place is falling apart. A few years back saw the worst of it. 1934.

 

He stops at that strong smell of cheese. He smiles at the woman behind the piles of it, Madame Brochet, purple pansy pinned to her white apron.

 

“ _Deux cent cinquante grammes de Camembert, s’il vous plaît_.”

 

 

 

 

 

They’d arranged to do something. Charles had asked, after the last time, the third time, and Erik had looked at him a while before saying yes.

 

He’d pulled his trousers on, bare feet sticking out the ends, and Charles couldn’t help watching. Just looking. The darkness of his room didn’t show much, curtains open, yellowing street light against Erik’s chest, hair sparse in the centre, circling around his nipples, paling, softening where it spreads down to his navel; below it darker, coarser.

 

“What did you have in mind?” he’d asked. Grabbed his shirt from the bottom of Charles’ bed.

 

“Not sure,” Charles had said. He felt teenage nervousness in his belly, butterflies. “Have you been to the zoological gardens in Vincennes?”

 

Erik had shaken his head, buttoned his shirt, rubbed hands through his hair.

 

“I go there to sketch the animals,” Charles said. “Would you like to go? They have monkeys. Elephants, wolves. Bears. Bears, too, lots of them, and—”

 

“I’ll meet you there.” Erik had smiled, cutting through Charles’ rambles. Charles’ stomach had settled and he smiled back, relieved, giddy with it in a way that would have him laying awake once Erik had left. “Next Friday. Noon. Okay?”

 

 

 

 

 

“Here,” Erik says. He stops by Charles’ side, reaches for the sketchbook. He tugs at the top of it, Charles lets it go. He hums. “You’re good.”

 

Charles grins. He preens in the light of compliments, always has, eager to please.

 

They’re stood by the wolves. Erik flips through the rest of the book, stopping at certain pages to look for longer, smudges of charcoal, ink. He pokes at the sketch of an elephant, smiles at the black tip of his finger. He looks up.

 

“Can I try?” he asks. He shrugs, wry turn at his mouth. “It won’t be very pretty, I must warn you.”

 

Charles nods, says, “Yeah, yes— of course. Here.” He hands over his pencil, graphite, this one, and he says, “Just don’t press too hard, it might snap.” He points at the blank page, smooths a hand over it. Their closeness has him feeling warm. “And lighter lines are easier. Just— look at the animal and then at the paper, and, well— draw what you see.”

 

Erik smiles. He does as he’s told, makes soft marks, and Charles puts his hands in his pockets, smiles to himself, at his shoes.

 

“I think I may have ruined your sketchbook,” Erik says. Charles huffs a laugh.

 

“Let me see,” he says.

 

Erik tilts the book, shows Charles the sketch. It’s more of a drawing, like Charles’ in school, proportions off. It’s not bad, a little wobbly, eyes two little black almonds. Charles nods.

 

“It’s good,” he says. He can see Erik smirking. “No,” he says, “it is, don’t look like that. It’s your first go. You’ll get better if you practice.”

 

Erik hums. He brings the book back to his chest, scribbles something below the wolf. His name.

 

“There,” he says. He hands it back to Charles, nods at it, says, “When I become a famous artist, you can sell that. Might get you out of cleaning toilets and tables.”

 

Charles laughs. He shakes his head, says, “Thank you.” He tucks the book back in his satchel, lifts his pencil to wave it at Erik. “I’ll make sure to keep it safe.”

 

 

 

 

 

Charles wants to kiss him. Out here, walking for the Métro, on the Métro, elbow to elbow on the balustrade by the river. He’s fairly sure the social graces of Paris match those of London. Some people care. Some people don’t. It’s better if he doesn’t. But oh, he wants to.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the first time that they fuck. Charles will scratch the date down in his journal, in his head, keep it there.

 

He’s on his back, legs spread wide, Erik between them. His chest feels tight, Erik’s face hovering only inches above his, whites of his eyes a strange glow. Charles pants as Erik’s hips roll. The bed creaks.

 

Erik groans, low, quiet, and Charles watches his eyebrows furrow, his teeth grit.

 

“Erik,” Charles says. He hooks his feet around Erik’s waist, hand at the back of Erik’s head, holding him down to his neck, holding him still. He breathes, nose scrunching, it’s been a while since the last time, says, “Give me a minute.”

 

He feels Erik grin against his throat. His hips cant forward, barely, and Charles scratches nails into Erik’s scalp, moans. Erik lifts his head; Charles lets him.

 

“Alright?”

 

Charles nods. He leans upward, weight on one forearm. Erik’s mouth is soft, his movements gentle. He tastes of the scotch Charles had grabbed before they’d come upstairs.

 

Charles lifts a hand to Erik’s face, rough with end-of-the-day stubble, cups his jaw, fingers below his ear.

 

He presses harder, teeth biting at Erik’s lips, heels digging at the small of Erik’s back. His head drops back and his eyes shut when Erik thrusts, hard. The fingers of one hand curl up in the bedsheets, others scraping down to mark lines in Erik’s shoulder blade.

 

“More,” he says. “I’m ready, now, Erik— more, please.”

 

Erik looks down at him. His cock is thick, long; hot where it pushes in, out. It feels good where he moves, slow, a drag that almost burns with pleasure. Charles breathes through his nose. Erik doesn’t say anything, just moves back on his knees, hands tight on Charles’ thighs where he pulls them apart.

 

He’s beautiful. He’s lean, stomach flat, hair dark against his winter-pale skin.

 

Charles curves his back upwards, gives Erik better leverage, better access, and his breaths are short as Erik fucks into him, gritted teeth, the bed moving beneath them. The sound of the headboard against the wall has Charles laughing, breathless, and Erik has a grin on his face.

 

He moves his hands from Charles’ legs, drops down, length of his torso pressed to Charles’, Charles’ cock caught between them, a deep ache. His mouth pants open, Erik’s chin against his. He meets Erik’s eyes. He moves to kiss him, but Erik tips his head away.

 

There’s a smirk, hands wrapping around Charles’ wrists, pinned either side of his head. His hips roll, a slow push-pull, and Charles’ skin is sweaty, tight, and he can barely breathe, panting, moaning.

 

“Erik,” he says. The bottoms of his feet slip at Erik’s thighs. He moves to meet Erik’s thrusts. “Erik.”

 

Erik presses his mouth to Charles’ shoulder, open, wet. He moves along Charles collarbone, his throat. Charles is caught between Erik’s mouth and Erik’s cock; he swears he can feel the head of it, thicker, it’s driving him mad.

 

He moves against Erik’s hold on his wrists; Erik keeps one, lets one go. His hand grabs a fistful of Erik’s hair. He feels Erik grunt against his skin, a vibration, his teeth nipping into Charles’ earlobe.

 

It’s Erik who comes first, his thrusts harsher, faster. His movements are restless; he drives his cock deep as he moans, over, over. His face scrunches; Charles paws at it, free hands, pushing hair back, stroking at sweat-slick cheeks, forehead.

 

He feels it, the warmth of it, inside of him.

 

“Erik,” he says.

 

Erik presses his face to the side of Charles’, to Charles’ hair, moans. Charles’ hands move to Erik’s backside, nails digging in, pulling him deeper, still.

 

He pants against Erik’s neck. He feels almost claustrophobic, can barely breathe, Erik all around him, against his chest, his throat, face. He grins to himself, up at the ceiling, nose twitching as Erik pulls out, string of pain flashing up his back.

 

Erik kisses him, once, then starts down. Down Charles’ chin to his belly. Charles moans, loud, neck arching back. Erik’s mouth is at his cock, hot, wet; Charles’ lungs feel tight, ready to burst.

 

“God.” He says it, again; says Erik’s name.

 

His toes curl. Erik sucks at the head of his dick, swallows down, fingers pushing up and into him, filling him up again, all wet inside with Erik’s come.

 

He cries out, gasping for air. He comes and Erik takes it, takes Charles’ cock all the way down; smiles when he pulls off, grins like a cat. Charles grabs his shoulders and brings him to his face.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, ~~FRI 22 OCT~~ SAT 23 OCT]

_I dare to think Paris has worked its magic. I didn’t intend for it to do so…I feel the childish giddiness in me, the butterflies in my stomach. Maybe I am getting too far ahead of myself, I cannot help it._

_Today we went to the zoological gardens. I suppose it is not today any longer, it is tomorrow, Saturday, the clock by my bed reads 12:40. He is beside me— Erik, sleeping. I write by the light of the tiny lamp. He makes soft noises. He has to wake early for Shabbat service, the same one the girls attend. That awful connection was made in my head— he is Jewish, he is German. I didn’t say anything and I did not ask anything— what is there to say, after all?_

_We wandered the streets for a while after the zoo. He showed me the Pletzl, le Marais’ Jewish quarter. We ate at a Kosher café, shared sweet wine. It was nice._

_And tonight, oh, tonight we slept together. Not just mouths, hands. I feel sore in the best way, ache snug along my spine. We will meet again after the Synagogue._

 

 

 

 

 

They’re meeting at a café along the rue de Rosiers. Charles is sat at a table outside, despite the cold, the October breeze. He waits, stirring a spoon in a fancy French coffee, metal clinking the side of the cup.

 

He’s always been too fast to fall. In school it took him less than a week to fall for the prefect two years ahead of him; in London it took three days for the man who punched a fascist flat in the face at Cable Street, just over a year ago. His heart is fickle. He’d fall a little for the Métro conductor if they gave him a smile. But this is different. Maybe; somehow.

 

His chest tightens when Erik arrives, long grey overcoat, skullcap still sat at the back of his head. He smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

“I must say, I admire your bravery,” Erik says. Charles looks at him. “Coming here with none of the language.”

 

Charles hums. “Not sure it’s bravery,” he says. “Maybe more stupidity. A lack of thinking on my behalf.”

 

Erik huffs a laugh. It’s soft, barely there.

 

The café is dark, deep red walls having the place cosy. They sit at the back corner, quiet, painting of the street outside pinned to the wall beside them. The table is small enough to have their knees almost touching. There’s a plate of crêpes between them to share.

 

Erik pulls one in front of him. “I could help,” he says. He dips his chin, says, “With your French. I started learning when I was about six. It’s not so bad, once you get used to every other word sounding the same.”

 

Charles smiles. There’s that warmth in his gut.

 

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to— well, waste your time.” He shrugs, says, “The girls have tried, believe me, but all I’ve gotten out of that is swearwords and chat-up lines.”

 

Erik raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?” he says. He tears off a part of his crêpe. “Go on.”

 

Charles licks at his teeth, fights off a grin. “Okay,” he says. He thinks. His memory is like a sieve. He looks at Erik’s eyes, thinks, says, “ _On va chez vous ou chez moi_? Erm.” His accent is useless. There’s a long pause after each word, syllables stretched out, he couldn’t look more like a clueless Englishman if he tried. “ _Vous venez ici souvent_? _Voulez-vous danser avec moi_?”

 

Erik snorts a laugh, a snigger with no malice, shakes his head. “ _Très bien_ ,” he says. “Those phrases come in useful?”

 

Charles shakes his head, “No, not at all. Unless you’d like to dance?”

 

Erik smiles. Soft, no teeth. “Maybe later,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

Charles is left with the last crêpe. He’s grown too fond of them, would eat them come morning, noon, evening, if he could.

 

“What part of England are you from?”

 

Charles takes a bite, wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. All table manners were left at the family home. It’s an odd sense of freedom. He’s got his elbows on the table.

 

“Oxford,” he says. “Lived in London awhile. But Oxford was where I was born, raised. Hence the accent.”

 

Erik smiles. “My sister moved there,” he says. “England. Same time I came here.”

 

“Yeah?” Charles says. “Whereabouts?” He finishes the crêpe, washes it down with his coffee, still warm, bitter enough to scrunch his nose.

 

“Manchester,” Erik says. “Salford, by the river. Old haunt of Engels.”

 

Charles nods. He’s been to Manchester before, a few times, buses full of men and women with placards, badges.

 

“Manchester’s nice,” he says. “The people there, too.” He rests his cheek in a palm, head tilted. “How come you didn’t move there?”

 

Erik lifts a shoulder, lazy shrug, says, “I prefer Paris. She didn’t particularly care where she went, as long as it was out of Germany. And her husband has friends there, in England.” He huffs. “She wanted me to go with them. Farther away, Channel between there and Hitler. But I like it here. Always have.”

 

Part of Charles wants to ask what made them move. He already knows, of course he does, but something in him still wants to ask it, wants Erik to tell him; wants to know all of Erik he can. He doesn’t. He asks, “Is she your only sibling?”

 

Erik nods. “Older. Smarter, too,” he says. “Got herself a husband and a kid before everything went to hell.”

 

Charles can’t help a smile. “You’re an uncle?”

 

Erik looks at him, wry little curl to his mouth. “Yes,” he says.

 

“Niece or nephew?”

 

“Niece,” Erik says. “Madeleine. Maddie— she’ll be five come January.” He scratches at the side of his jaw, looks almost sad, for a second. “What about you?” he asks; looks to Charles. “Siblings?”

 

Charles shakes his head. “No,” he says. “A stepbrother who’s better left unmentioned. That’s it.”

 

 

 

 

 

“What do you do?” Charles asks. “The girls told me you’re a journalist, but— what? What do you write about?”

 

Erik shrugs. He’s got both hands around his cup, says, “Politics, mostly. Social issues. War. I’ve got friends in Spain who send me letters. We publish them.”

 

Charles looks at him. “I have friends there, too. International Brigades.” Erik nods. “Did you think about it?” Charles asks. “Going there?” he says. “Spain?”

 

“I’ve thought about it,” Erik says. He huffs, sarcastic twist of his mouth. “I thought about it for a long time, but I have my work here; have enough on my plate with Nazis. I’m not sure there’s much room for any more fascists.” He looks to Charles, sips at his drink, asks, “You?”

 

Charles nods, yes, he’d thought about it. He’s thinking about what Erik just said, his work here; Nazis. They’ve always felt like some fairytale villain to him; in England they were nothing but a horror story too far away to seem real. Here they’re closer.

 

“I thought about it, when everyone else was leaving,” he says. He watches Erik’s hands, his fingers, a slow, soundless tap against the porcelain, palms big enough to split it. “Last December. But part of me has always been a coward; I don’t think I could do that.” He looks at his own hands. “Fight a war. Use guns.”

 

“Not even against fascists?”

 

There’s a strange look on Erik’s face. Charles isn’t sure what to say.

 

He says, “I don’t know.”

 

 

 

 

 

His feet take him further into the city than they have before. He feels restless.

 

Why hadn’t he gone to Spain? His friends had asked, last year, when they were packing their bags— their sunglasses for the Spanish summer to come. They’d thought nothing of it, it was so obvious that they had to go, that the fight wasn’t just Spain’s— was theirs, too. But he was scared. He still is, at the thought of it; how easy it would be to die, left forgotten in the ditches of a country he’d never seen before.

 

In England it was easier, it was simpler, there were no guns and no militiamen, just the Blackshirts and their razor flat caps; the London streets and the fistfights. There’s a scar down his forearm where a blade had cut through his jacket and his shirt; pink, faded. It was easy, to be young and radical in London, where everything was only bruises and sharp edges.

 

He thinks of his friends in the hillsides, lost, bullet wounds. He doesn’t think he’s ready to die for the cause. He thinks Erik is; almost knows Erik is. And Charles is drawn to it. It’s strange.

 

 

 

 

 

The Jardin des Plantes is a part of the National History Museum. The Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. Charles has never been, has never known it was there, just across the Seine, but it is.

 

“They have a small zoo,” Erik says. “I thought you’d like it.”

 

Charles grins, can’t help it. “I do,” he says. “Thank you.”

 

They walk among the gardens, the flowers, the shrubs, trees. Charles has his sketchbook, stops every now and then. He’s like a child in a sweet shop. They’ll have to come again in the spring, in the sun. There are clouds and some flowers aren’t flowering.

 

“Have you been?” Erik asks. “The museum?”

 

Charles shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I’m not entirely certain why. I went to the one in London about once a fortnight. The staff all knew me by name.” He smiles to himself. “But how is it,” he asks, “the one here? Any good?”

 

Erik nods, looks down at the tortoises. Their stumpy legs rise, drop, slow. They eat lettuce leaves and greens and the orange of chopped carrots.

 

“I’ve not been to the one in London,” Erik says. “But I imagine they’re on par with one another. I’m surprised you haven’t been. Too busy cleaning toilets?”

 

Charles elbows him; he huffs a laugh.

 

“Maybe we could go,” Charles says. He’s drawn three of the tortoises. They might be his favourite. Lumpy, craggy. He looks to Erik, smiles. “If you’d like to.”

 

Erik smiles back at him, small, says, “I’d like to.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. November 1937._



November comes easy. He spends at least two nights a week with Erik— most times three, four— above the saloon, sated, happy.

 

There are some nights when Erik talks. He’s not sure where it comes from. But he likes those nights. They’ll both be staring up at the ceiling, and Erik will talk, keep talking, won’t stop. There’s nothing important in there, not really, just childhood tales, favourite books, breaking Nazi Party windows with university friends.

 

Charles stays the night at Erik’s flat for the first time. The building is a maze, a rabbit warren, he could get lost; too many rooms, too many doors. There are photos by Erik’s bed, old, creased; about half a dozen apples in the bowl by the kitchen sink. Red and yellow ones. It feels like Erik, there.

 

He knows he’s falling; almost fallen. He can’t help himself, as always, too fast; he looks at Erik and he listens to Erik and he thinks, oh, I’m so glad to be here.

 

 

 

 

 

One night Erik takes him to the opera, told him he had to go, at least once; a classic Parisian experience.

 

They grow bored midway through the first half. Erik’s hand is on Charles’ thigh, hidden in the darkness of the theatre, and Charles can’t concentrate on anything else. He’s sure the woman with the large breasts heaving out the top of her dress is a wonderful singer, but Erik’s hand is warm, right at the crease at the top of his leg. Charles drags him out as soon as the curtain falls for the interlude.

 

He’s never had sex in a theatre before. Erik smirks at him as Charles shoves him in a toilet cubicle.

 

“Not a fan of opera, then?” he says. Charles shuts him up with hands in his hair, tongue in his mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

“He’d just come back from Warsaw the day before you met him,” Gabrielle says. It’s early, 8PM, Tuesday. The place isn’t busy. There’s a stool behind the bar they keep for when it’s quiet. She sits on it, elbows on the bar top. “A few weeks before that was Vienna. He’s been coming and going since he got here. Poland, Austria, Hungary. Czechoslovakia. Mostly Austria. It’s bad there.”

 

They taught her how to speak English at school. She kept on with it through university. Her accent pokes through.

 

“Is it dangerous?”

 

She shakes her head; stops. “Well,” she says. She looks up from her game of cards— patience. Charles won’t play pontoon with her. He’s learnt his lesson, too many lost bets. “It’s safer than Germany,” she says. “But not as safe as here.” She shrugs. “Nazis.”

 

Charles rubs under his nose. The word smarts.

 

“Why does he go?” he asks. “If it’s dangerous?”

 

“It’s not dangerous,” Gabrielle says. She sighs, has reached a dead end with her game. The cards scrape as she drags them together, makes a pile, shuffles them. “It’s not like he’s walking into warzones. Worst he’s ever come back is a black eye and a bruise the shape of Africa on his stomach.”

 

Charles frowns. “Could you translate some of his articles for me?”

 

He’s sought them out, in the newsletters, found his name, tiny, beneath headlines he can’t understand: **ERIK LEHNSHERR**.

 

Gabrielle looks at him. “Why?” she asks. She deals out her cards again. “Can he not do it for you?”

 

“Well, yes, but— I don’t know,” Charles says. He shrugs, scratches at the back of his neck. “I don’t want to bother him. Or seem like I’m trying to shove my nose where it’s not wanted.”

 

He doesn’t want to pry— Erik hasn’t shown him any of his articles, hasn’t mentioned any of them; Charles doesn’t want to misstep, make a mistake. It’s sensitive, maybe, this issue of politics, of Nazis.

 

Gabrielle hums. “Fine,” she says. “But only a few. And you buy me some of those chocolates at the market.”

 

Charles smiles. “Deal.”

 

 

 

 

 

There are letters from men in Spain. Gabrielle’s handwriting is scrawled, messy. Charles has to squint in places.

 

‘ _They have taken all of Northern Spain. We retreated to Barcelona a few days ago. A comrade of mine, Marcel, is lost. I have not seen him for weeks— I fear he is dead. The city here is so beautiful and they are going to destroy it. I haven’t slept properly for months and the other day I saw a man’s gut spilt out like lines of string._ _They have Hitler and Mussolini, we have nothing— when Blum turned his back we knew this would be hard. The Soviets are not helping as much as they should, I fear without them we will lose. The Brigades can only do so much without airpower, without tanks._ ’

 

There’s an article about a trip to Vienna, a few months back, a tobacconist’s shop with smashed windows, pig’s blood thrown across its front— _Jude_. A man stabbed the day before, children bullied, synagogues defaced. Charles’ stomach turns with it.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a bar on the rue Daunou that’s owned by an American, Harry’s New York Bar. The one Hemingway drank at. Now even he is in Spain.

 

They take the long way there, almost an hour spent wandering, walking alongside the river. Their fingers brush, shoulders together. They pass the Musée du Louvre. It’s dark, is getting darker earlier, now, but everywhere is lit up. They can see the tower.

 

“I need to tell you something,” Erik says. His hair is out of place from the wind. Charles looks at him across their table.

 

“What?”

 

Erik itches at an eyebrow. “I’m going back to Vienna,” he says. “I don’t know when. Not yet. But within the next three weeks.”

 

“Oh,” Charles says. He can’t say he’s surprised, has been waiting for it, almost; all those times the girls have mentioned, all the places Erik has been. He bubbles with nerves. “Okay. Is everything alright over there?”

 

Erik huffs. He’s got his elbows leant on the table, chin resting on the knuckles of one hand, other busy with a glass of whisky.

 

“Not particularly,” he says. His fingers move to scratch at his jaw, a few days unshaven, stubble rasping against his skin. “I’ve had a letter from a friend.” He rubs at his forehead. “They want me to go back and see what’s going on. My editor has okayed another article.”

 

See what’s going on. More pig’s blood? Smashed windows? Stabbed men?

 

Charles nods. He chews at the inside of his cheek, toes curling in his shoes.

 

“Will you be there long?”

 

Erik shrugs. He gulps down half his glass. “Don’t think so,” he says. For once, they’re not the only ones speaking English. Charles can hear it around the room, American accents. “I’m not certain, but I don’t think so.”

 

“You’ll be safe?” Charles asks. It blurts its way out of him; Erik’s eyes snap up from his drink. “I’ve read some of your articles,” Charles says. “It doesn’t sound very safe.”

 

There’s a twitch at the corner of Erik’s mouth. His eyebrow quirks with it. “How’ve you read those?” he asks. “Have you been learning French behind my back?”

 

Charles can’t help a smile. He can never keep serious for long, even when he needs to, when he intends to.

 

“Gabrielle translated them for me,” he says. Erik nods his head, _ah_ , sips his whisky. “But you will?” Charles asks. “You’ll be safe?”

 

Erik nods, again, soft movement of his chin. “I’ll be fine,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik’s place is closer. They go back there, it’s a Friday night, Charles doesn’t have to be awake early to clean, Erik can walk five minutes to his synagogue come 9AM.

 

They stumble along the streets. Charles is drunk, the happy kind, and Erik is tipsy, keeps smiling, grinning, will have lines there when he stops.

 

He’s glad he came here. To Paris. He misses London, his friends, but they’re carrying on without him, most of them in Spain, in Catalonia. Everything is that little bit simpler here; he gets what feels like love and his friends get war. He knows it was their choice. But he finds himself thinking about it, lying awake, looking at the ceiling, at the walls, turning over and looking at the nape of Erik’s neck. There’s a right and a wrong in all this fight; he feels a coward.

 

 

 

 

 

He stays in bed late. He hears Erik leave, just before nine, a brush of fingers through his hair.

 

He’s woken when Erik returns, kisses to the side of his face, hand reaching down under the covers. Charles grins. He opens his eyes to Erik smirking at him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. December 1937._



The buzz of the city hovers around him. Some days he feels as though he’s drowning in it, surrounded by a language he’s not yet learnt, a culture he’s not yet part of. He’s learning, Erik a good teacher, but it’s taking time. He loses patience with it every now and then.

 

His first winter in Paris is growing closer. The nights are colder; only most nights there’s a body beside him, keeping him warm like the cat by the fire.

 

“Erik,” he says. He’s not entirely sure what time it is. He wraps himself further in the blanket, the duvet, plastering himself to Erik’s back. “Erik.”

 

He hears a sigh. “What?”

 

“What time are you leaving?”

 

He dips his head, nose pressing at the bottom of Erik’s neck, where shoulder blades meet.

 

“One,” Erik says. His voice is thick with sleep; Charles can feel it when he yawns.

 

“Okay,” Charles says.

 

They go quiet, and it isn’t long before there’s the soft sound of Erik’s snores, open-mouthed breaths that leave wet patches on the pillows.

 

The day’s come. He’s going to Vienna. Only for a week. He’s had more letters from more friends that say things are getting worse. Things are getting worse, what more is to come?

 

 

 

 

 

Charles goes with him to the station. They’d kissed when Charles had finished work, arms aching, still half-asleep, and Erik had hovered over him and dragged himself down Charles’ front, mouthing at his throat, his nipples, his belly, his baby fat. He’d sucked Charles’ cock, Charles’ back arching inwards, outwards. Left him boneless.

 

“I’ll see you next week,” Erik says. He’s wearing his hat. The stupid black pork pie one. “Tell the girls I said bye— and that I’ll bring them something back.”

 

Charles smiles. “Will do,” he says. He watches Erik haul his suitcase onto the carriage. “Bring back some food.”

 

Erik grins at him. There’s something in his eyes that Charles can’t place; it worries him. He wants to grab hold of Erik’s sleeve and pull him out onto the platform, just as the whistle blows, as the train leaves.

 

“Don’t worry,” Erik says. “Madame told me all about your sweet tooth, remember?”

 

They can’t kiss, not here. Charles steps forwards, fistful of Erik’s coat sleeve.

 

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says. Erik looks at him. “I mean it.”

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, SUN 5 DEC]

_He has been gone three days. Only three days. And yet it feels strange not to have seen him in that long. It feels colder waking up along. It is boring without someone to talk to. I’ve grown used to it, especially over the last month, and I like it. I want him back here. I wonder if I’d have fallen for him anywhere else. I think I would have. Paris has just exacerbated it, maybe, made it faster. It feels like living in a fairytale with the big bad wolf just across the border._

 

 

 

 

 

Madame has him cleaning. He’s found himself back with more spare time, restless, wants Erik back. He wonders the streets and eats pastries. He thinks it might snow soon.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been eleven days. It was supposed to be a week, ten days, at most, but he’s still not here, he still hasn’t come back.

 

Charles paces the length of the bar. There’s an awful feeling in him that’s been there since day nine; it won’t leave him. Gabrielle watches. She’s caught between frowning and smirking, doesn’t know whether he’s funny or pathetic.

 

“Sit down,” she says.

 

Charles ignores her. He walks over to Ruth, the piano. He smiles at people as he passes them, regulars.

 

He leans on his forearms on the piano’s top board, says, “Have you hard anything from Erik?”

 

Ruth looks up, looks at him awhile. She shakes her head, fingers still playing. “Still nothing,” she says. “I’m sorry, Charles.”

 

“What about at the synagogue?” he asks. He wants to know. Wants to hear that Erik is safe, Erik is fine, he’s just been busy. Lots of friends to see, people to talk to.

 

Ruth just shakes her head again.

 

“Nothing?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

Charles frowns. He stands straight, runs a hand through his hair. He doesn’t know what to do. His mind keeps running away from him.

 

“He’ll be fine,” Ruth says. Charles looks to her. She gives a smile. Her hair is tied in a bun at the back of her neck, shiny brown, curls loose to frame her face. “He’s been before. And he’s been worse places before. Just wait,” she says. “He’ll be back,” she says. “He’ll be fine,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

Charles lies awake; stares at the ceiling. He’d been back to Erik’s building. The concierge told him the same thing she did a few days ago— she hasn’t seen Erik.

 

He sighs, turns on his side, tucks the duvet close to himself.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a letter waiting for him when he comes down to clean, Thursday. It’s been two weeks.

 

He recognises the handwriting, his name on the envelope, his address, the saloon. He tears it open with his fingers, paper splitting. He swears as it cuts his skin.

 

_Charles,_

_I’m sorry. Seeing what I saw in Vienna has made me realise this is no time to be in love. It has snapped me back to reality— war is coming; I cannot be in love with you when it will end in blood._

_All I can say is sorry. I’d ask for your forgiveness, but I do not deserve it._

_Thank you for the past few months. I hope you find someone and something better. I’m sorry for wasting your time._

_Erik._

 

His hands twitch. He reads it again; again. He knew something was wrong, that look in Erik’s eyes— damned Vienna, what has he seen this time? More pig’s blood? Murder? _Jude_?

 

He feels himself welling up, hot behind his eyes. He shoves the letter back in its envelope and leaves it on the bar top. He goes to clean.

 

 

 

 

 

The girls know. They mix him drinks, play him songs. Gabrielle smiles at him.

 

 

 

 

 

It jars him. They’d been a routine, the two of them, he’d grown used to it. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Too fast, all over again. Maybe this is just what Paris is— love affairs, flings, walks along the Seine. He feels heartbroken and lovesick like a child; he can’t help it. _War is coming, I cannot be in love with you…_ What kind of damned excuse, war, when it isn’t even here?

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a stand at the corner where two streets meet, five minutes walk away, near the bakery that sells cheap macaroons, and they sell English newspapers, magazines.

 

Charles sits and reads one, sits in the back of the bakery and stuffs his face.

 

There’s an article written by a correspondent who’d just spent a week in Munich. Charles’ chest aches as he reads it, tale familiar, Nazis, Nazis, Hitler Youth, _Juden_. He turns the pages to similar news, taxation of German emigrants increasing, Jews paying out thousands just to escape their own homes. The world is going mad and what is he to do about it?

 

 

 

 

 

He comes back on Christmas Eve. It hasn’t snowed.

 

He comes when Charles is dancing. There’s no reason for it, except it’s Christmas Eve. There’s no excuse for it, except it’s Christmas Eve.

 

He doesn’t know exactly what it is he’s dancing to. It’s one of Gabrielle’s old records, on Gabrielle’s old record player. He thinks it’s Maurice Chevalier. He’s not sure. He doesn’t particularly care, tumbler of gin held tight in one hand. The bottle sits near empty beside the turntable.

 

His body is loose; feet bare on the living room rug. He stops when he hears knocking.

 

The bar downstairs is closed. It’s late, not many people come to a saloon on Christmas Eve; no point in hanging around to serve two people, is what Gabrielle had said.

 

Charles hums to himself. He turns the music down.

 

Maybe one of the girls needs something. They have the keys to the back door; need them to get up the stairs and to his flat, through the alleyway.

 

He sets his glass down on the sideboard, doesn’t bother fastening his shirt; it hangs open at his chest, top four buttons undone. His hair is stuck up from his hands running through it.

 

The knocking at his door turns louder, someone banging their fist against it.

 

“Alright,” he says. “Jesus Christ.”

 

He undoes the chain, opens the door.

 

He stops. He’s wavering on his tiptoes, unsteady; drops back down, feet flat.

 

Erik lifts a hand. “Salut.”

 

Charles frowns. He stands there, surprise welling up in him. Erik, woollen hat, scarf.

 

He should close the door. Go back to dancing, drinking, Maurice Chevalier, this never happened. But he doesn’t.

 

The thinks to himself, looks at Erik, his jumper, his coat, his face beaten red by wind, by cold, and oh, sod it. The alcohol dares him, heart caught in his throat. He reaches for Erik, grabs a cheek in each palm, cold skin prickling. He pulls Erik down to kiss.

 

Erik startles. Charles feels him lift his arms; his hands hover between them.

 

Charles presses closer, two of them stood in the doorway, frame around, above, and Erik presses back, cool hands in the front of Charles’ shirt, backs of cool fingers brushing Charles’ chest, jolts. Charles screws his eyes shut, Erik is back, Erik is here, forget the letter, he’s here.

 

Erik dips his head, mouth dropping from Charles’. Charles breathes. He moves his hands, kisses a cheekbone, the lid of an eye, an eyebrow.

 

“Stop,” Erik says. His arms move down to his sides only to come back, push Charles away. “Charles— stop. Enough.”

 

His voice is what stops him. Charles steps back, feels his anger ebbing forward, God, how he shouldn’t have had so much gin.

 

“What?” he says. “What are you here for, then? What do you want, if not a fuck? To say goodbye in person? Leave and never come back?”

 

Erik reaches towards him, towards an outstretched arm, but Charles pulls it back, snaps it to his chest.

 

“Charles, I’m sorry.”

 

He looks the same. It’s only been three weeks; he takes off his hat— his hair is starting to grow longer, starting to curl at the nape of his neck, strands loose, framing his face where the weather has had its way. But he’s the same. His stubble has grown out, russet red, he looks like a fisherman. Charles swallows.

 

“You said that in your letter,” he says.

 

Erik looks down; like a chided child. “I know,” he says. “I’m not good at— I’ve never—” He stops. He looks back up. “Can I come in?”

 

Charles stares at him. He wants Erik to come in— he wants Erik in his bed, between his legs, his arms. And what’s to stop him? What does any of it matter?

 

He walks backwards. He doesn’t say anything, just turns, walks to his bedroom.

 

There’s a quietness. Then the sound of the door, of the lock, Erik’s feet down the hallway.

 

“I didn’t come here for this,” he says. He’s taken his shoes off. His hands twist in his hat.

 

Charles pulls his shirt off over his head, easy with the buttons undone. Erik watches him. God, Charles wants him.

 

“For what?” Charles asks. He stands by the edge of his bed, watches Erik’s cheeks move with the clench of his jaw, his fingers tighten and loosen in the wool of his hat.

 

“I need to tell you something,” Erik says.

 

Charles shakes his head, moves to Erik, grabs his coat and starts tugging, pulling, says, “You can tell me after.”

 

Erik huffs, hands at Charles’ elbows. “Charles—”

 

“Shut up,” Charles says. “Just— shut up.”

 

 

 

 

 

He feels high, past-tipsy with gin, Erik above him, inside him, warm breath against his neck.

 

They’re curled around each other, Charles’ hands around Erik’s back, so close they’re hot in the cold of the room. Charles shuts his eyes, mouth wet, he’s so relieved he could cry with it. His anger seeps out of him and he cries out, hand around his cock. He wants this forever.

 

 

 

 

 

The post-coital silence settles around them, empty, half-awkward.

 

“I’m sorry,” Erik says. “About the letter, I thought— I thought I could stay away, cut it cold turkey. But I can’t.”

 

Charles doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure what to say. He nudges a leg between Erik’s, edges himself closer.

 

“I don’t go to all these places because I’m a journalist,” Erik says. “I don’t just go to write articles, see friends, I—”

 

He sighs; shifts himself up to sit, knees tucked to his chest. Charles watches him, his hands rubbing over his cheeks, through his hair, there’s this haunted look on his face. He looks younger, like this. Charles moves to sit beside him.

 

“I’m sorry,” Erik says, again. “I’m no good at— at this. Talking. My sister used to call me a robot.”

 

Charles smiles, soft; what else is he to do? He wishes Erik never left to Vienna, those weeks ago, he wishes this last month away; he wishes the Nazis away, why are the fascists all here, now, just when he and Erik are? Why is the timing so cruel?

 

“We’re trying to build a resistance,” Erik says. “Against Nazis. Fascists. We’ve stockpiled guns, weapons— hidden them in safe places. We’ve smuggled people out of Germany, brought them here. Four came back with me this time.”

 

Charles looks at him. “A resistance?”

 

Erik nods, pulls a hand harsh through his hair. Charles sees it tug at his scalp.

 

“The things they told me, Charles.” He closes his eyes, scrubs at one of them. “I left before they could arrest me, but everyone I know, everyone I left behind— they’ve been round up. I haven’t heard from my parents in months.” He looks to Charles, big eyes, says, “It’s bad. Everything is going to hell.”

 

He tells Charles of all the people he meets, the ones in Prague, Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest— all over, they have the same stories. Communists, Jews, homosexuals. Ones who fled Germany, whose families have disappeared, in camps, in graves, in ditches. Everything is getting worse and they’re just waiting for the punchline.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Charles asks. He’d understand— he does, he does. “Before— why didn’t you just tell me? That damned letter, Erik—”

 

“I know,” Erik says. “I know. I’m sorry.” He offers a smile, timid. Charles grits his teeth, bites his tongue, _I’m sorry_. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to drag you into it, I didn’t think I’d need to— when this started, that night at the saloon, I thought it would just be sex, I thought— I didn’t think it would be this.”

 

Charles frowns.

 

“I thought it would be easy to leave,” Erik says. “It wasn’t.”

 

“So what?” Charles says. “You just want sex? Nothing else, just sex, and you can leave whenever you want?”

 

Erik looks up at him, shakes his head, no, says, “No, Charles, I— Christ. I want you. I want you, I do, all of it, what all these other damned Parisian lovers have, but I— I need you to know that there’s a war coming. And don’t say there isn’t.” Charles shuts his mouth. “Because there is. There is, and when it comes, I won’t be staying here, and war— it ruins things. It’s no place for lovers.”

 

Charles just looks at him, this stupid earnest look in his eyes, everything so black and white, so bleak beyond the borders, and he doesn’t want to think about a war, or when it will come— he doesn’t want to think about Erik leaving, only Erik staying. War isn’t here, not yet.

 

“But you’ll stay,” he says. “As long as war isn’t here. You’ll stay.”

 

Erik looks at him, his fingers fidgeting; Charles grabs hold of them.

 

He knows, of course he does, as much as he wants to stick his head in the sand, sometimes, as easy as it’s been to ignore it all, hideaway in Paris, in Erik’s arms, God, he knows.

 

Erik nods his head. “I’ll still need to go back,” he says. “To Vienna— to wherever.”

 

“But you’ll tell me,” Charles says. “You’ll tell me where you go— what you do. Maybe I can help.”

 

Erik’s face softens. In this low light he looks like an old painting, baroque, Charles could look at him forever.

 

“Yes,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. January 1938._



He escapes New Year’s without injury. They get drunk downstairs, with the rest of the crowd, and Charles says it as 1937 turns into 1938.

 

“I love you,” he says. Sloppy with alcohol, hands pawing at Erik’s face, he says it, over and over, “I love you. _Je t’aime_. _Ich liebe dich._ I—”

 

Erik ducks his head, kisses him, once, to shut him up. They’d spent the last few days together, only separated for work, for the Synagogue, and Erik had told him everything. All of it, from its ugly beginnings those years ago, to the Nuremberg Laws, the beatings, the camps and the crackdowns. Charles had told him about Cable Street, just to see him smile.

 

Erik walks forward, nudging Charles back down the hallway of his flat, fingers fiddling to undo the buttons of Charles’ shirt. His face is smooth where he’s shaven, where Charles reaches for, forgetting, the fisherman whiskers gone.

 

It’s past 3AM. They’ve been drinking since ten o’clock, gin, wine, champagne at midnight.

 

“Bed,” Erik says. He yawns, wide stretch of his mouth. His breath smells of vodka.

 

Charles concedes to him, lets Erik undress him, lazy. They sleep, too drunk, too tired for anything else, Erik curled along Charles’ back, nose in Charles’ hair. Charles smiles to himself in the dark, head swimming.


	2. Chapter 2

**PART TWO**

**1938-1939**

  1. _Paris, France. March 1938._



Erik won’t stop pacing. He hasn’t slept properly for nights, lies awake, tosses and turns, gets up, walks around the living area, goes downstairs, sits at the backdoor. He comes back smelling of cigarettes. He’s had letters from his friends; he’s invited them to the B&B, to his flat, anywhere.

 

Charles can hear him. His bare feet make soft noises on the carpet.

 

“Please get back in the damned bed. I have to clean in the morning.”

 

Erik’s feet stop. The bed dips as he sits on it; Charles can see his back in the darkness. He reaches out, presses his hand against a shoulder blade. He spreads his fingers.

 

“Sorry,” he says. He slides his hand up and over, to Erik’s collarbone. “I’m tired.” He pulls. “Come here.”

 

Erik does as he’s told, turns and lies down, brings himself to Charles’ front. His head tucks under Charles’ chin, arms folded up against his chest. His skin is cold from outside of the covers. Neither of them say anything.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s all over the newspapers. His French sees him able to understand the headlines: Austria has been annexed into Germany, into the Third Reich. His stomach churns. He can’t help but think it, knows Erik is right, one step closer to it, to war. He pushes the thought back.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, SUN 13 MAR]

_I only write so as to remember that I was here when this happened. I am with Erik, now, in Paris, as I was yesterday, when Germany swallowed Austria._

 

 

 

 

 

Erik goes to the Swiss border. He’s gone four days, comes back with two families, three generations fleeing their homes, and Charles goes with him, the day after, to check on them at Madame’s B&B.

 

They sit in the dining room, breakfast time, and Erik speaks with the adults. Charles doesn’t understand— they speak in German; all he has is boarding school _hallo_ s, _auf wiedersehen_ s. But he watches them, the bags under their eyes, the slumping of their shoulders.

 

He plays snap with three of the children, sat on the floor. The eldest can’t be more than nine years old.

 

Charles lets them win, feigning slowness, bad eyes, and he feels lighter when they laugh. He smiles when he looks up, catches Erik watching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. April 1938._



It’s Erik’s birthday. Twenty-nine years old.

 

He hadn’t told Charles, had left him to find out from Gabrielle, the morning of, and he says, “I didn’t want to make a fuss. I don’t really care for birthdays.”

 

Charles looks at him. He sits at the kitchen table, half-empty cup of coffee in his hand; had gotten back from work half an hour ago, ink stains on his fingers, again. Charles knows precisely what kind of present to give him.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik groans as Charles sucks him in, there, between Erik’s thick thighs, on his knees on the kitchen floor. He feels Erik’s cock twitch, swell, and Charles’ mouth is wet for it, always is.

 

The chair creaks as Erik shifts in it, hips bumping up to get deeper, and Charles takes it. His eyes water as Erik’s hands knot in his hair, as Erik’s cock pushes down his throat; God, he could live on his knees for Erik’s cock, could spend hours here, lips stretched, so full he can barely breathe.

 

Erik pulls him off before he can finish, harsh jerk of Charles’ hair, and Charles breathes, whines for it, high little moan. He moves to get Erik back in his mouth, wet head of his dick against Charles’ cheek, but Erik doesn’t give him the chance; hauls him up to kiss, to say, “Fuck. Charles. I’m going to fuck you through the mattress.” He shoves his tongue in Charles’ mouth, can taste himself there, Charles knows. “No idea,” he says, “you have no idea what you do to me.”

 

 

 

 

 

It’s the first day of Passover, two weeks later, and Erik invites him to the Synagogue.

 

Charles doesn’t know much about it, had daydreamed his way through Sunday school, malted milk biscuits, orange juice, but Erik had wanted him there— wanted to show him where he worshipped, wanted him to see his friends, the people here, the kids, the retirees who sit at the front and gossip in Yiddish, make pastries.

 

They’re stood outside, the two of them. Charles has a skullcap sat tight at the back of his head, black satin, a yarmulke. Erik had picked it out for him.

 

Erik lights a cigarette, hand hiding it from the wind. He offers it to Charles. Charles shakes his head.

 

“Are there normally this many people?” he asks.

 

Erik inhales, blows out a mouthful of smoke. The breeze sends it to Charles’ face. Erik coughs a laugh, shaking his head.

 

“Sorry,” he says. “And no. Most just come for the holidays.” He puts the cigarette back to his lips, breathes it in, pulls it away, breathes it out, says, “Rabbi Ulmann told me more people have been coming over the past year.”

 

Charles hums. There are clouds threatening to spill over, April showers. His head itches where the yarmulke presses on his hair.

 

There’s a young girl here that Erik is fond of, about twelve— Charles had seen him with her, earlier, when he’d wondered off to greet the Austrian kids, whoosh the three-year-old up in the air and spin, grin on his face, smile for the parents. Erik had been off to the side, fat book in his hand that he’d nudged the girl with, his big smirk; the girl had pulled it from him and hit him in the gut.

 

“Her father is in Spain,” Erik had said. “I used to help her mother out, when things were quieter. Pick her up from school. Most days she’d just come back to the office with me; play with the typewriters.”

 

Charles watches a couple of kids running along the street, still in their best clothes, scraped knees.

 

“We could take her to the zoo some day,” he says. Erik turns his head. “Katherine. Kitty.”

 

Erik hums. “We could,” he says. “Would you want to?”

 

Charles nods, his hands tucked up under his armpits, wind cold where it blows flower petals, whips his hair in his face.

 

“Of course,” he says. “If she’d like to go, that is. Do kids still like to go to the zoo? Did French kids ever like going to the zoo?”

 

Erik laughs at him; flicks away his cigarette. “Let’s ask her,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

They go the Monday after. Erik takes the day off; they collect Kitty at the end of the school day, take the Métro over to the zoo.

 

Charles likes her. She’s tough, has more guts than he ever did as a child, and he can’t help but laugh each time she mocks Erik, teases him. Charles lends her his sketchbook, and she finds that wolf from months back, laughs until Erik shoves his palm over her face, pushes her backwards.

 

It sets something odd off in Charles gut. He didn’t think he’d care about not having kids, but seeing Erik with Kitty, how good a father he’d be, it gives Charles this melancholy brooding feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

His twenty-fourth birthday is spent in a mess of alcohol, loose limbs, Belgian chocolates, an ache in his jaw from his grins.

 

“God, I love you,” he says. Erik smiles at him, all teeth, hair slipping forward to frame his face. He ducks down to kiss at Charles’ cheek, side of his lips. His hips shift in shallow movements, a slow fuck, languid, all the time in the world.

 

“Love you,” he says. Charles grabs him by the head and kisses his mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. May 1938._



Erik plays violin at the saloon, again, the place full, people come to watch, to clap. They like him. He plays the violin like no one Charles has seen, not at the posh houses, the posh dinner parties, old men in penguin tuxedos. He likes watching Erik play, Erik practice. Some songs are sad enough to make him cry, the notes drag, wails. He could listen for hours. The rest of his life could be spent with Erik and his violin.

 

 

 

 

 

He sits at Erik’s kitchen table, letters and envelopes in piles, some in French, some English, German, different handwritings, stamps.

 

“How many letters do you have here?”

 

Erik shrugs. He stands by the window, half-leant out of it. He’s smoking more. Maybe fifteen a day. Probably more at work. Charles can always smell it on him.

 

“About a hundred, maybe,” he says. He taps ash out on the sill, says, “I usually get one a week. There’s three on the right I’ve got over the past fortnight or so. We’re publishing them in the next copy.”

 

The newspaper he works for is more of a magazine, a newsletter. Sometimes they publish once a month, sometimes once a week, twice a week, every other day. Depends on the news. Charles reads each and every one, now. Erik helps him when he gets stuck. His French is getting better.

 

He picks out one of the letters written in English. It’s dated the middle of March; just after the Anschluss. Charles doesn’t remember it.

 

‘ _Italian and German planes have bombed Barcelona. The Republican Air Force has no fighters here— we are only men and women armed with guns and knives and fists, we can have no quarrel with bombers. They’ve been striking for the past day and a half. I have seen many civilians dead. We hear from Aragon that we are losing ground there. We are losing_.’

 

He sets it back. He still feels guilt, for not going, that voice in him that calls him a coward, but what would it change if he had gone, anyway? What good could he do against airplanes?

 

Erik offers him the last of his cigarette. “Here,” he says. He holds it in front of Charles’ face, watches him watch it until he takes it.

 

He doesn’t smoke, not really. This is all he does. The ends.

 

“Thanks,” he says. He presses it to his mouth, breathes, blows it out, rush running through him, out his nose, lips. He gives it back to Erik for the ashtray on the counter. “How much longer do you think they can last? In Spain?”

 

Erik stands behind him, hands on his shoulders. His fingers rest, don’t squeeze.

 

“I don’t know,” he says. “What Blum sent was too little too late.”

 

Charles chews at the inside of his cheek. “Do you think they’ll last the year?”

 

Erik hums. A hand moves its way to the back of Charles’ neck, fingers moving up into his hair, rubbing at his scalp. Charles leans into it; closes his eyes.

 

“Madrid won’t fall,” Erik says. His other hand comes up and around, at Charles’ chest, and Charles reaches up for it. “They’ll last the year.”

 

 

 

 

 

Erik goes to Budapest for the first time in a while, a week later. Alone. Charles hasn’t stepped foot out of Paris since he got here. He’d toyed with the idea, for a while, until Erik had told him, it’s fine, it’s easier if I go alone.

 

Laws have been passed in Hungary— economic sanctions on Jews, restrictions on practicing certain professions. It’s getting worse everywhere.

 

Charles spends his time wandering the gardens, in bloom, everywhere green, red, pink. He even sees Kitty, her mother working late, needing someone to watch her. She’s learning English, he’s learning French. They draw pictures and swap words. A drawing of a monkey, un singe, a big fishing boat, un bateau de pêche, a small one, un barque de pêche.

 

 

 

 

 

He comes back, the next Thursday. He gets a taxi cab from the train station, comes back, straightaway, brings sweets, pastries, flódni. He leaves some on the bar for Gabrielle, some on the piano top for Ruth, surprises Charles from behind on his barstool.

 

His mouth is by Charles’ ear. “Upstairs?”

 

Charles nods, says, “After you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. June 1938._



He can’t stand the heat. He’s always hated summer, even in England, end of June, too hot, sticky, wet patches under each arm, at the nape of his neck, small of his back. He has to take a cold bath every night. Wraps his arms around the ice buckets at the bar.

 

Erik tells him he’s too soft. It’s not that hot. He tans where Charles burns, wears polo shirts, walks around Charles’ flat in his underwear, curtains all open, windows wide, not a care in the world for wandering neighbours’ eyes.

 

“I have an offer for you,” he says.

 

Charles lifts the cold flannel from his face. He’s on the settee, bare-legged, bare-chested, foot lolling over the edge.

 

“If it’s not an ice bath, I’m not interested.”

 

Erik huffs. “No,” he says. It’s late evening, still around twenty degrees. He finished work about an hour ago. “A job.”

 

Charles sits up, leans on an elbow. “What?”

 

Erik sits by Charles’ feet. His hand is warm at Charles’ calf. Charles kicks him away, too hot.

 

“I asked our editor,” he says. “She’s American,” he says. “Speaks your language.”

 

Charles looks at him. His shirt is unbuttoned down the front, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The hollow of his throat shines with sweat. He looks good. Charles shifts.

 

“Okay,” he says. “What was it you asked your editor?”

 

Erik grins, dips his head. He leans into the back of the settee, says, “I asked if she’d give you a job. I told her about your French, said I’d help— she’s willing to give you a chance. If you want it.” He shrugs, smirk at one side of his mouth. “Better than cleaning toilets.”

 

Charles purses his lip. He’s biting back his own grin, puts the flannel over his face to hide it.

 

“Maybe I’d rather clean toilets,” he says.

 

Erik snorts a laugh. He grabs a hold of Charles’ thigh, lunges upwards— Charles makes a high noise, surprised, flannel falling onto his chest as he jumps, falls back. Erik hangs over him, smiling. He smiles unlike anyone else Charles has met— mouth wide, all teeth. He can’t help but smile back. He pushes a hand against Erik’s face, Erik moves as if to bite at his fingers.

 

“Yeah?” he says. His bare stomach sticks to Charles’ with the heat. “You’d rather clean toilets?”

 

Charles shakes his head, laughs, says, “Of course I fucking wouldn’t. Would you?”

 

Erik hums. “It’s a hard choice,” he says. “Wouldn’t want to miss out on cleaning up someone else’s piss, after all. I know how you’ve loved doing that this past nine months.”

 

Charles bats at him, light, playful, but he dodges it, sitting back on his haunches. He breathes, sweat already at his forehead, down the centre of his chest. Charles tosses the flannel at him. It makes a flat sound as it hits him, another as it falls and hits Charles’ belly.

 

“Alright,” Charles says. “What exactly is my new job?”

 

Erik wipes at his face, his neck. He’s too hot on Charles’ legs. He can’t wait for another winter.

 

“You’re my junior,” Erik says. He shifts, moves, goes back to sitting by Charles’ feet.

 

Charles raises an eyebrow. “Your junior? What does that involve? Wiping your arse? Polishing your shoes?”

 

Erik pinches at his ankle. Charles pulls it away to push it back, kicking at Erik’s side.

 

“You’ll help with my work,” Erik says. “Write up bits of information I give— I’ll send stuff while I’m away, call you with details. You’ll use it, write articles with it.”

 

Charles looks at him. “You’re trusting me to write articles?”

 

The most experience he’s had with journalism is the leaflets he’d made in school, the boarding school’s newspaper, the newsletters he’d help edit for the socialists and the anti-fascists in London. Erik had studied it at university. It’s his job.

 

He nods. “Yes,” he says. He smiles. “You start Monday.”

 

 

 

 

 

The editor is from Boston. She’s not what Charles was expecting, wears culottes and button-up shirts and blazer jackets, dresses like Gabrielle. Blonde hair pulled into a curled ponytail at the back of her head.

 

Emma Frost. Can’t be much older than Erik.

 

She looks Charles up and down. She’s holding a pile of folders to her chest, has ink smudged into the pads of her fingers, smear up the side of her forearm.

 

“So you’re Charles,” she says. Her accent reminds him of Harry’s; they haven’t been in a while. Maybe they can go after work, one day.

 

Charles nods. He holds out his hand, she shakes it. “Nice to meet you.”

 

She hums, eyes flicking to Erik. “He got any German in him I need to be aware of? Italian?”

 

Charles’ eyebrows furrow. He sees Erik shake his head, stood at his left. “No,” he says. “British, that’s it.” Charles looks at him. He’s smirking. “Although he has had some German in him—”

 

Charles elbows him; he coughs. Charles smiles. Emma snorts a laugh; it’s a strange sound, doesn’t fit with her, she’s not even sweating, cool and collected. Charles is. Two warm patches either side of his chest, under his arms. Prickles at the nape of his neck, small of his back. Every window is open.

 

“I knew there’d be some other reason he asked me to hire you,” Emma says. Charles smiles at her, isn’t sure what else to do. At least she knows, doesn’t care. “As long as you do your job, you’re fine. And it can’t pay you much,” she says, “we’re stretched as it is. Lehnsherr can make sure you get paid in other ways.”

 

Charles nods his head. “It’s fine,” he says. The girls weren’t happy he wasn’t going to be cleaning anymore. So he’s still cleaning Thursdays, Fridays, before he comes here, to work. His new work. They’re splitting the rest of the days between the two of them. “Thank you for giving me a chance.”

 

Emma nods. “Lehnsherr can show you around. I’ll be upstairs.”

 

“Come on,” Erik says. He nudges Charles forwards, further into the room, the office, hand at his back.

 

The room isn’t big, maybe the same size as the saloon, and there are six desks. Two big windows opposite the door. They look out onto the building across, a mirror image, look down onto the cobbles of the street below, one floor up. There are piles of folders and papers everywhere. Typewriters. There’s a door labelled _printing_ down the hall and to the left. There’s one more room, upstairs, three more desks.

 

Erik introduces him to the rest of the staff downstairs, five of them, three Parisians, Mélanie, Sara, Jacques, one Pole, Krzysztof, one Czech, Jan. They’re nice. He recognises Mélanie from the Synagogue, Passover. She has a son, maybe five years old.

 

“We’ll have to share a desk,” Erik says. “Not much room left in here.”

 

Charles brushes a hand over the typewriter. He hasn’t used one since England. “I get to use this?”

 

Erik nods. “But don’t waste paper,” he says. “It comes out of your wage. More likely my wage.”

 

Charles smiles. He’s excited. He feels like he’s doing something, finally, is a part of something. It’s not firing guns and it’s not smuggling families, but it’s something. He’s doing something to help.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, FRI 24 JUNE]

_I am no longer a cleaner!_

_I’d like that to be fully true, but I am still a cleaner, Thursdays and Fridays. But most days I am not a cleaner. Most days I’m a journalist. Me— a journalist. I’m a junior, to Erik’s senior, he’s showing me what he knows. All his notes from abroad. There’s so much horror there that I still didn’t know. But now I do._

  1. _Paris, France. July 1938._



It’s happening here, in France. The Évian Conference.

 

That’s where Erik is. He’s reporting and he’s sending things back to Paris, to Charles, calling him from the hotel telephone. The hope is that America will accept more Jewish refugees, from Germany, now from Austria, but Erik is unsure. He says no one can agree. America didn’t even send a government official. It’s falling apart.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik comes back, days later, comes into the office, feet harsh on the wood floor, patches of sweat under his arms, down the centre of his chest, pale blue shirt turned darker; grey. He sets his bag on his chair. Everyone is turned to look at him.

 

His arms across his stomach, he tells them.

 

There are hundreds of thousands of Jews that are now stateless, need homes, asylum— rights stripped from them— but America will only take thirty thousand a year. Britain the same. The French delegate, Henry Bérenger, bastard, he says France has reached the extreme point of saturation as regards to the admission of refugees. Australia doesn’t want much part of it. Neither does Canada. America, there’s what, a hundred and thirty million people there, how would it hurt them, to take more? Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, ha.

 

They don’t care, Erik says. He’s ranting, angry with it, everyone just sits, watches, listens.

 

They don’t care, he says, they’ve already sat by and done nothing for the past five years. Why would they start now? They only fight to protect themselves, their land. They fight for their own sovereignty, he says, they don’t care about the ones being killed, stuffed in camps— you think they care about Jews? Homosexuals? Just look at how they treat their own people— look at those America First bastards, look at the last King, the Duke of Windsor, how he met Hitler. It’ll take a threat to their own heads before they even think once, let alone twice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. September 1938._



Things are getting worse in Czechoslovakia. Erik has been to Prague twice in the last month, four times in the last three months. Jan has left work, has left France— has gone to defend his home, join the Czechoslovak Army.

 

They write about it at the paper; Hitler making speeches, mobilising along the border, riots, violence. Erik brought back a family of five with him, the last time.

 

Charles writes about Chamberlain asking for a meeting with Hitler. He writes about Chamberlain meeting Hitler. He doesn’t like Chamberlain, never did, doesn’t like Tories— doesn’t like war, either, but madmen are not to be appeased, they’re not to be met with handshakes and smiles like nothing is wrong, like nothing has happened, and Erik claps him on the back when he reads the article, says its good, he’s proud.

 

The paper is published three times in one week, Charles’ work in two of them. Chamberlain and Hitler and Chamberlain and Daladier.

 

The British and French governments are in agreement that any territory with a German population of over fifty percent must be relinquished. At the saloon Erik stands on a chair and gives a toast, to Daladier, has the room clapping and drinking to a phrase Charles knows well, from lessons with the girls, Daladier can eat shit and die. He cheers and knocks back his vodka; grabs the side of Erik’s face when he steps down, kisses his cheek.

 

 

 

 

 

They met Friday, September 24th. It’s been a year. Time has gone so quick and so slow; some weeks have felt like months, others like days, too much happening, always. Things have happened and tides have turned, are turning.

 

They’re at the Bois de Vincennes; not for the zoo— Erik takes him elsewhere. They pass it by, Charles’ neck craning to see the giraffes. The leaves are starting to change.

 

“Okay,” Erik says. They’ve stopped by the lake. There are people in rowboats crossing to the two islands, sailing around them, between them. It’s not busy, half past seven. Erik puts his hands in his jacket pockets, says, “We can rent a boat or we can walk to the bridge.”

 

Charles has never been on the islands; has never bothered to come by this lake, always wonders over to the Château, the chapel, sketches, reads. He grins.

 

“The boat,” he says.

 

Erik huffs a laugh. It’s good, seeing him smile, here, now, where and when nothing else matters, for a while.

 

“I knew you’d choose the boat,” he says. “You think it’s romantic.”

 

Charles shrugs, lips tight in his grin, says, “It’s a rowboat. In Paris.”

 

He’s never been in a boat this small. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, is the one with the ores, and Erik leaves him for a few minutes, watches him struggle with his smirk, his laugh, his hat. He gives in, eventually. He takes the ores.

 

They get to the island, link arms where no one is, sun starting to fade.

 

“This was a nice idea,” Charles says.

 

Erik hums. “You haven’t been to this part of the park before, have you?”

 

Charles shakes his head, no.

 

“Good,” Erik says. “I want to show you something.”

 

He pulls Charles along; peacocks that have crossed the bridge watch them, tails tucked, ducks make noises down by the water. They’re at the edge of the island, the big one, and Erik leads him through the trees.

 

“Here,” he says.

 

There’s a cream building, round, pillars, dome roof. Like a marble bandstand. Pigeons sit on its ledges.

 

Charles walks under it, looks around, across the lake, the park, and he feels himself soften. God, he could cry, this stupid romantic gesture in a park in Paris.

 

He turns back to Erik— sees him with his grin, his hat, his hands in his pockets and the mud on his shoes. Erik shrugs.

 

“It’s the Temple of Love. Or so they call it,” he says.

 

Charles goes to him, away from the island’s edges, hidden by leaves, branches. He grabs him by his face and kisses him, hand moving to the back of Erik’s neck, other staying at his cheek, palm itchy with stubble, thumb rubbing where it’s rounded with a smile. Erik kisses back. His fingers are tight at Charles’ sides.

 

“I love you,” Charles says. “God help me,” he says, “but I do.”

 

Erik smiles. “Love you, too,” he says. “You know I do. Insufferable Englishman.”

 

Charles hiccups a laugh, leans himself against Erik’s front, fingers fiddling with the hair at the nape of his neck, the edge of his hat.

 

He wishes this could be it, forever— that they were born fifty years before, when none of this was happening, when war was a far off thought, wasn’t looming heavy over the hills.

 

“Can we just stay? Here?” he asks. “Forget everything else. We can just stay here forever— forget the rest of the world. All it’s madness.”

 

He knows, of course he knows, has known since last Christmas, that as soon as war comes, Erik will go. He shuts his eyes and pushes it away. Is this what it is to love? He aches with it.

 

Erik ducks his head, kisses him once, soft.

 

“You know we can’t,” he says. Charles looks at him. Big eyes, half a smile. He shakes his head. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go get something to eat. And something to drink.”

 

 

 

 

 

He’ll come back to this night, this day. They eat at the B&B and they drink at the saloon. This is everything he loves of this place and he never wants it to go.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik leans over him, both their shirts undone, trousers pushed half-way down legs. Erik’s suspender straps hang lame by his sides.

 

He noses along Charles’ jaw, mouth wet at his neck. “I want to try something,” he says. He edges back, sits on his haunches. Charles looks at him; watches him pull out of his sleeves, drop his shirt to the floor.

 

“What?” Charles asks. Erik shakes his head.

 

“Trust me,” he says. He grins, dopey, despite his good looks. “Turn over.”

 

Charles frowns, small pull at his lip. He does as he’s told, rolls over on his stomach; brings the pillow down to rest the side of his face, arms tucked beneath.

 

He likes the thrill that comes with not seeing, of not knowing. He closes his eyes, breathes; feels Erik’s hands at the base of his spine, smoothing upwards, dragging the shirt with him.

 

Erik starts kisses down his spine, open-mouthed. Charles’ skin goes cool with the wetness left behind.

 

It’s slow, Erik’s hands rubbing at Charles’ sides, in towards the small of his back. Charles feels Erik’s legs move as his mouth presses down, further, fingers hooking in the waistband of Charles’ underwear, pulling them away, kissing the skin they uncover.

 

Charles moans, soft. The elastic drags over his cock as he lifts his hips.

 

He grunts as Erik tugs his underwear down his thighs, hands there to spread him apart, open, exposed. There are kisses across his cheeks, bites, nips. There’ll be purple little marks, come morning.

 

Charles makes a high nose, a whine choked off in his throat, and Erik’s mouth is at his hole, tongue warm, wet, licking over, over.

 

“Erik.” Charles breathes, goes to lift up, clench his legs shut, but Erik is there, keeping him down with a hand on his back, shoulders between his thighs. Charles shoves his face into the pillow, moans.

 

It feels good. It’s intimate, has Charles’ toes curling, fingers tight in the soft of the pillow. He can’t help the noise he makes, his nose scrunched up with it— Erik’s mouth kisses, licks, sucks; his head turns left or right to nip with teeth. His stubble scratches.

 

Charles has the pillow damp, open mouthed, he can barely believe what Erik is doing, kissing his hole how he kisses Charles’ mouth, his nose a hard point further up, higher between Charles’ cheeks.

 

“Fuck. Erik, fuck.”

 

He can feel his cock leaking, aching, dragging against clean sheets as he writhes, bites down hard into the back of his wrist. He cries out when Erik’s tongue dips, pushes inwards, pulls out, pushes inwards. His skin feels too tight, electric; he’s caught between wanting to pull away and beg for more.

 

He’s left whining when Erik stops. He goes limp, boneless on the sheets, breathing ragged like he’s just run a marathon, twenty-six miles.

 

Erik rubs his hands over Charles’ arse, nails sharp, cupping, stretching. He feels the mattress dip either side of his chest as Erik hangs over his back, kisses at his neck, will find sweat there.

 

“Good?” he says.

 

Charles almost laughs, breathless with it. He nods his head; needs Erik’s cock so bad he can’t wait, desperate for it, wound up, his hole wet with Erik’s spit.

 

He rolls onto his back, feet kicking at the trousers caught around his ankles, his underwear, and he reaches a hand to the back of Erik’s head, drags him down.

 

He pushes his tongue in Erik’s mouth, his legs hooking around Erik’s waist.

 

“Fuck me,” he says. He looks at Erik’s eyes, heady, spreads his legs as he says it, “Fuck me, please, Erik— fuck me hard, please.”

 

Erik kisses him, hungry with it, hands blindly fumbling to tug at the sleeves of Charles’ shirt, get it off him, throw it down to the floor. There’s this awful wait as Erik pulls away; stands to take off the rest of his clothes.

 

He settles himself back between Charles’ legs, hands fast at Charles’ hips, lifting them, his fingers quick to slick with the Vaseline at the bed side table. Charles moans as they press into him, loves the feel of it, always does, two, then three, moving, pushing, stretching.

 

“It’s good,” he says. He’s impatient, greedy with it, he needs it. “It’s enough, Erik, just—”

 

He shuts up as Erik pulls his fingers out, shoves his cock in, vicious with it. Charles cries out, body arching up into it— God, he loves it, feeling so full, stretched; he throws his head back and breathes, heavy.

 

Erik moves, shallow little movements, hands tight on Charles’ thighs, holding him up, open.

 

Charles whines as Erik thrusts hard; pace shifting to these fast jackrabbit jerks of his hips, no relent, his face tight, nails digging in. Charles’ moans stutter with it, he doesn’t know what to do with himself, arms spread out, curling in the bedsheets. He lies there and takes it, loves it, dick bouncing up against his stomach.

 

He reaches up as Erik slows, smile on his face as Erik comes to him, hands holding him up either side of Charles’ shoulders.

 

They kiss, sloppy, wet. Erik groans as Charles clenches with each slow push in, drag of Erik’s cock against his rim good, so good. He cries as Erik pulls out, empty, can feel the grin on Erik’s face as he pushes his way back in, slow. It’s nothing but a tease, this speed. Charles wants bruises, aches deep in him tomorrow; knows Erik wants him to ask for it, beg for it.

 

“Please,” he says. His voice is low, one hand at the nape of Erik’s neck. Erik’s eyes flick up to him.  “Please, Erik.”

 

Erik’s nose nudges against his, down to the underside of his jaw as he bites at Charles’ neck, sucks a mark where all can see. Charles can’t even think to complain.

 

He moans as Erik’s hips move, faster, harsher. Erik straightens, hands moving to grip hard at Charles’ waist, and Charles nods his head, is mumbling nonsense, “Yeah, yes— harder.”

 

“Touch yourself,” Erik says. Charles looks at him, the sweat shining on his skin. His breath chokes as Erik slams into him, impatient, and Charles does it, back arching as he wraps his hand around his cock, wet, desperate.

 

He jerks himself as Erik fucks him, mouth hanging open, voice pitching higher as he gets closer.

 

“Erik,” he says. He curls himself up into it, every push-pull of Erik’s cock inside him, sides aching with Erik’s grip dragging him further.

 

“Come on,” Erik says. He’s breathless, chest heaving as he thrusts, says, “Charles. Come on my cock— I want to see it.”

 

Charles whines. He loves Erik talking to him, wants more of it. He’s so close he’s almost cross-eyed with it, everything too much, too good, he fists his cock and screws his eyes shut, feels the hot stretch of Erik’s cock.

 

“Erik,” he says. He bites hard on his lip and whines, bed creaking with him, can’t stop his high moans as he gets there, cries out, _Erik, Erik, Erik_ , back arching up off the bed, come spilling over his fingers, sticky on his stomach, his chest.

 

Erik groans, hands moving to push Charles’ thighs up, wider. Charles takes it, still working himself, hot all over, barely breathing.

 

“Yes,” he says; nodding, says, “Fuck me, Erik, come in me, please. Come in me.”

 

He drops down to cover Charles as he comes, face pressed to the side of Charles’ neck, his breath hot, mouth open with low moans, Charles’ name. Charles’ legs twitch with it, sensitive; he feels Erik’s come in him. He grins to himself, half-smug.

 

He grunts as Erik pulls out. He feels like he’s run a hundred miles, sweaty, breathless, Erik a heavy weight on top of him. He wraps an arm around Erik’s side, breathes him in and smiles at the ceiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. October 1938._



Germany takes the Sudetenland without a shot being fired.

 

The mood in the office is dull, no one talks, long silences drag. Erik writes about the Munich Agreement. Everyone feels heavy with it. Emma offers to buy a round of drinks after work, says they all look like they need it, but no one feels like it. Charles does. Erik doesn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

The fight in Spain isn’t going to plan. News comes out of the country that the Republican Prime Minister has ordered the unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops fighting with the International Brigades; they are to leave, go home.

 

Part of Charles is relieved— his friends will return to London, Kitty’s father will return home to her, but he knows this means it’s over. The fascists will win in Spain.

 

He sees people he’s never seen before, in the saloon— someone comes to work, his skin brown from the sun, the puckered wound of a bullet hole in his shoulder. He’s Jean-Luc. He worked there, before the war. He tells tales that make Charles feel ill.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, MON 17 OCT]

_God, how I wish times were simpler. Easy. I wish we lived outside of it, out of time, alone, no wars, no nothing. I wish we could go forwards, past where it’s hard, and start afresh there. Erik has always said, since the start, that war is coming, and each time I try to forget it, ignore it, he could be wrong, but we all sense it, something in the air. I love Erik for the fighter he is, I love him for how he will fight for what is right, but I wish times were simpler, that he didn’t have to fight to exist— I’d love him just the same in a place where no one hated what he is, what we are._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. November 1938_.



The news of it spreads fast, first the shooting, then the death, then the pogrom. Everything comes to him with a dull thud or horror, of this can’t be happening, this wasn’t meant to happen, but everything comes to Erik full force. Charles is removed from it where Erik isn’t— where Erik can’t be.

 

“This is what happens,” he says. “You take one of theirs, they take hundreds of yours. Thousands. You fight back, and you—”

 

He stops; he breathes. His knuckles are white and in the empty silence Charles can hear the click of his jaw in and out of place.

 

The boy who did it was a Polish Jew, only seventeen. He was a Polish Jew in Paris; of course Erik knew his name.

 

They call it _Kristallnacht_. Night of the Crystal. It happens hours after vom Rath dies, two days after the shots, after Herschel Grynszpan, and Erik hears words from radios, Jews murdered in their homes, on the streets, arrested and sent to camps, tens of thousands of them. Erik still doesn’t know where his parents are.

 

He doesn’t go to work for five days. Charles goes, writes about it, and Erik approves it. But he doesn’t go to the office. He meets with people, those who fled Austria, who got out of Germany, and he talks. He comes home and tells Charles, tears in his eyes he’s so angry with it, desperate, what can they do? The dark curtain keeps getting closer and what can they do about it? The resistance, they have maybe a hundred people, guns stockpiled, but what do they do?

 

“I don’t know what to do,” he says, and it hurts in Charles’ chest.

 

 

 

 

 

A week later, Erik says he’s going back to Vienna. He’s going with three others, native Viennese, Dominik, Johannes, Max. Their synagogues were burnt to the ground. And they still have friends stuck there.

 

“We’re smuggling them out,” Erik says. “Some might stay in Switzerland; some might come back with us all the way.”

 

Charles can’t stop wringing his hands together. It’s the first time Erik has gone back into Austria since the Anschluss. Half of him wants to go, to be with Erik, see what he sees, know what he knows, but then there’s that other half of him, the coward, and Erik stops his rambling, tells him it’s okay.

 

“I like having you here,” he says. “Safe. And this way I always have something good to come back to.”

 

“You better come back,” Charles says. Erik stands at the front door, rucksack on his back, satchels over each shoulder, and Charles holds onto his arms, says, “God help you, if anything happens to you there, I’ll come. And I’ll raise hell, Erik Lehnsherr. You know I will.”

 

Erik smiles at him. “Of course I know.”

 

 

 

 

 

Ruth and Gabrielle stay late with him, one night, while Erik is gone. They close the saloon but leave half the lights on, sit down with him in a booth. He hasn’t spoken with them in a while, not properly, only over the bar, the piano.

 

Gabrielle’s brought over a bottle of vodka. Three glasses.

 

They talk about nothing and everything; Charles shows off his French, still remembers all the swears they taught him when he first came here, all that time ago. They swap stories of strange customers, of Erik’s fear of moths. Gabrielle arm wrestles Charles and wins. He says it’s because of the alcohol. He knows it’s not.

 

Ruth lets slip that she’s worried, that some of her family have talked of leaving France, moving to America, but Gabrielle won’t hear it. And Ruth won’t leave Paris without Gabrielle, like it or not.

 

“I’m not being scared out of my own home by some German pig with a moustache,” Gabrielle says.

 

“And what about being forced out of your own home by some German pig with a moustache?” Ruth says, glass tight in her hand, “Would that suit you better?”

 

There’s an awful silence as Gabrielle glares, as Ruth downs her drink and pours another. Charles takes the bottle from her and refills his own.

 

 

 

 

 

It gets better after more alcohol. They laugh again, and Charles is stupid-drunk, plays the piano despite the shouts of stop, it’s awful, tells them stories of his sex-life that will have him mortified come morning, climbs on the bar top and drags the both of them up there with him. He loves them, he loves Paris, he loves this damn saloon. He falls off the end of the bar and keeps laughing, huddled on his side on the floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. December 1938._



It takes Erik nearly three weeks to come back. They smuggled nineteen people across into Switzerland— eight of them into France, new names, new papers. Madame takes them all into the B&B.

 

Charles is so relieved he almost cries with it. He runs to Erik when he comes into the saloon, barrels into him like a child, clings to him. Erik laughs.

 

“Everything went well?” Charles asks.

 

Erik nods. “Everything went well.”

 

 

 

 

 

The last day of Chanukah lands on Christmas Day. Erik tells him it’s not important, all he’s done these past few years is light his Hanukiah each night, but Charles wants to celebrate. He buys kosher food from the market, wine from a tiny shop in the Pletzl, rugelach from the Jewish bakery. There’s no Hanukiah at his flat, so he buys one of those, too.

 

“Thank you,” Erik says. “For doing this.”

 

Charles sets his plate in front of him, kisses the side of his head.

 

“I want you to be able to celebrate here,” he says. He looks at the food, sorry excuse for Madame’s beef stew, says, “Sorry if the food is bad.”

 

Erik huffs a laugh. He pokes at it with his fork, shoves it in his mouth. “It’s fine,” he says. He hums, still chewing, and Charles bites at his grin. “It’s good,” Erik says.

 

 

 

 

 

They fuck slow, lazy; lie close together afterwards, wrapped up in the duvet, cold. Charles loves winter for this, how he can cling to Erik without sweating, sticking.

 

“What did you used to do?” he asks. Erik looks at him, across the pillows. “When you were at home. For Chanukah.”

 

Erik hums. He shifts, knees bumping Charles’, says, “When I was a kid, I’d draw my mother a picture, one for each day.” Charles watches him smile. “You’ve seen my art skills,” he says. “They weren’t good. One year, I think it was ’19, after the war— I was eleven, and I drew a rabbit everyday. I wanted one. My father bought a cat. They thought my rabbits were cats.”

 

Charles bites at his lip, grin aching at his cheeks. He laughs, goofy with it; Erik laughs back. He shakes his head.

 

“My sister was happy enough,” he says. “She’d wanted a cat since she was five.”

 

Charles smiles, can’t stop himself. He likes thinking of Erik as a child, innocent, with his mother, his father, his sister. His cat.

 

“The thing lived until I’d finished university,” he says. “Called it Ketz— cat in Yiddish is ketzl. We were creative.”

 

“What about your violin?” Charles asks. “Did you play for your family?”

 

Erik huffs. He grunts, an _ugh_ , nods. “Passover was worse. Or Bar Mitzvahs. I’d have to play for the whole synagogue— I ruined many dress shirts with sweat. I was an anxious kid.”

 

“I can’t imagine you nervous,” Charles says. He can’t, not this Erik, the one smuggling people across borders, stockpiling weapons. He reaches a hand to Erik’s face, his cheek, strokes a thumb under his eye. “I wish we’d met when we were younger. Before all this mess.”

 

Erik hums. He turns to kiss Charles’ palm. He shakes his head. “I was a weird-looking kid,” he says. “I was lanky. Hadn’t grown into my nose. You wouldn’t have liked me.”

 

Charles snorts a laugh, a noise at the back of his throat. “I don’t believe you,” he says. “Do you have photographs?”

 

Erik eyes him. He nods. “A few,” he says. “At my flat.”

 

“Show me them,” Charles says. “We’ll go to yours tomorrow.”

 

“Hm,” Erik says. He lies on his back; Charles shifts closer to him, arm over his waist. “Okay.”

 

 

 

 

 

He was a weird-looking kid. He shows Charles the photographs, him with his sister, shorts with suspenders, sides of his head shaven close to the skull. Nose too big for his face. Smile too big for his face.

 

“I got into a lot of fights at school,” he says. He hands Charles another photo, him with his violin, suit jacket too big. “Mostly because I was one of the only Jews. The fact I looked like this didn’t help.”

 

Charles laughs. In the pictures Erik is all limbs, like a baby deer, a fawn. It’s sweet, in a way.

 

“Any consolation,” he says. “I was covered in spots.”

 

 

 

 

 

They celebrate the end of the year. War has yet to come.

 

Charles and Erik stay in the saloon after closing, get the chance to drink with Gabrielle and Ruth, and Charles rises to the dare of drinking half a bottle of vodka, no stopping. It burns at the back of his throat and his stomach lurches, but he does it, vodka spilling over his lips, down his chin. Erik claps a hand on his back.

 

They play charades, the four of them split into two teams, Charles and Ruth, Erik and Gabrielle. Charles can barely read what the cards say. Can barely stand, has to mime King Kong with jelly arms, slurred words. Ruth guesses it right. He laughs as Erik mimes Charlie Chaplin, does the potato and fork dance from _The Gold Rush_ with no potatoes; laughs until his sides hurt. He falls up the stairs on their way to bed, and Erik stands and laughs.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, ~~SAT 31 DEC~~ SUN 1 JAN]

_I’m drunk! Fuck you, Hitler!!!!_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. January 1939._



They’re at work when Emma comes through; wraps her knuckles on their desk. Charles is half asleep, head in his hand, ache behind his eyes. He jumps, chair rolling back on its wheels. He still feels bad from New Year’s.

 

He looks up, squinting at the light. “What?”

 

Emma huffs a laugh. “Lehnsherr,” she says. “You’ll never guess who’s back.”                                                   

 

Erik turns his head, stops writing. There’s ink smudged up the side of his hand, always is. His eyebrows furrow. “Who?”

 

Emma holds an arm out. There are two people stood in the office doorway; young man and young woman. She’s got blonde hair, round cheeks; he’s tall enough to fill the doorframe, thick glasses, wiry, lanky.

 

Charles watches Erik get up, grin on his face. “Jesus Christ.”

 

The woman walks over to him, fast, shoes clacking on the floor. She hugs him, arms around Erik’s waist. The man follows her, smiles, hands in his pockets. He pulls them out to shake Erik’s, clap him on the back. Charles has never seen them before.

 

“We were starting to think you weren’t coming back,” Emma says.

 

“Where the hell have you been?” Erik asks. He folds his arms loose across his stomach, rests the backs of his thighs at the edge of the desk. His backside nudges Charles’ papers.

 

“Oh, you know,” the woman says. She’s American. Her hair is ash blonde where Emma’s is white blonde, short where Emma’s is long. She says, “Plenty of things to do in New York.”

 

Charles half-drifts from the conversation. His head hurts, stomach still unsteady with two-days-ago’s alcohol.

 

“Who’s this?”

 

Charles looks up from his papers, sees the woman smile at him; he smiles back. Erik looks over his shoulder at him. He jerks his head. Charles stands, slow, moves to Erik’s side.

 

“This is Charles,” Erik says. He looks to Charles, says, “This is Raven and her fiancé, Hank. They own a cinema off the Boulevard du Temple.”

 

Charles holds out his hand, shakes theirs, says, “It’s nice to meet you.”

 

“He doesn’t usually look this haggard,” Erik says. “New Year’s was just the perfect time for him to break his previous record of how much vodka one man can consume.”

 

Charles elbows him. Raven laughs.

 

They know Erik through Emma. Met her when they first came to Paris, years ago, Raven nineteen, Hank twenty-one. 1933.

 

“How’d you meet Erik?” Raven asks. She’s got her hands in her pockets, grey peacoat. Erik grabs spare chairs, sets them out around the desk.

 

Charles shrugs, unsure of how much to say. “He played violin one night at the bar I was in.”

 

“Ruth and Gabrielle’s place,” Erik says. He takes his seat next to Charles.

 

They swap stories, the four of them, Emma gone back to work, and Charles likes them. They’re smart, intellectuals, creatives— read books, visit museums, play their films. Hank knows about science and nature. They like the gardens and the zoos. Raven paints. They became French citizens two years ago.

 

“I like them,” Charles says, end of work.

 

Erik tugs on his coat, pulls his bag over his head, strap across his chest. “Who?”

 

Charles huffs. “Raven and Hank,” he says. He holds the door open for Erik, waves bye to Krzysztof, last one in.

 

“Oh,” Erik says. “Yeah. They’re good people.”

 

“Maybe we could go out with them some time,” Charles says. He shrugs. “Maybe to Harry’s after work. Or a Saturday night. Or they could come to the saloon."

 

Erik looks at him. There’s a half-smile on his face. “Maybe,” he says. “I’ll ask them.”

 

 

 

 

 

He helps Madame cook dinner for the first time in months; peels potatoes, carrots, same as he used to. It’s nice. It’s calm. It takes his mind away, every day at work there’s the talk of war, the one in Spain, the one in Asia, the one to come.

 

They’re able to hold conversations in French, now.

 

“I’m proud of you, monsieur,” Madame says. Her hair has gotten lighter, more grey, she wears the same flower and flour covered apron. “Who would have thought, hm? When you came here you could barely speak a word beyond _bonjour_.”

 

Charles grins. He tells her about his job with Erik, she tells them about the Austrians Erik brought back, last month. They’re doing well. Some have found their own flats, their children enrolled in schools.

 

“Does it ever scare you?” Charles asks. He’s staying for dinner, the two of them in the kitchen, table at the back. “All the things that are happening. The talk of war.”

 

Madame hums. “No,” she says. “I saw the last one. And nothing will ever be as terrible as that.”

 

 

 

 

 

Erik says he wants to teach Charles German, as well as French. Just in case.

 

“Do you know any already?” he asks, setting a book down in front of Charles. Beginners’ German.

 

Charles shakes his head. He remembers some from the classes in school, _hallo, wie heißt du, ich komme aus England_. He remembers how to say arsehole.

 

Erik laughs. “That will come in useful,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. February 1939._



They go to Harry’s, the four of them. Charles and Erik and Raven and Hank.

 

He doesn’t mean to get drunk. He never means to. He means to get tipsy, to enjoy himself, but Raven buys him drink after drink.

 

They have a contest. There are twenty measure-sized glasses between them, ten each; vodka, whisky, rum, gin. They’re not in order. Charles’ stomach twists from the sight of them.

 

“You’re going to kill yourselves,” Hank says.

 

Raven shushes him. “It’s fine,” she says. “It’s fun.”

 

Erik is watching, eyebrow half-raised. Charles grins at him. They sit beside each other, Raven and Hank on the other side of the table, bar dim, outside dark except for streetlights. Charles likes Harry’s.

 

“Okay,” Raven says. “Fastest to finish wins. Loser has to buy everyone’s drinks for the rest of the night. Deal?”

 

Charles nods. “Deal.”

 

“Count us down,” Raven says. Hank rolls his eyes.

 

He counts from five and down to one. Charles regrets it almost immediately, scratch down his neck, scrunch of his nose, and he can hear Erik laughing at the faces he pulls. First glass is vodka, next rum, then back to vodka.

 

His gag reflex kicks in on the fourth. Whisky. He has to cover his mouth, knock his head back.

 

Erik huffs. “Jesus Christ.”

 

Charles wins. He finishes the last drink, more vodka, and he claps his hands above his head, stands up. Raven is on her eighth.

 

“How the hell do you drink that fast?” she asks. Her voice is slurred. She hiccups.

 

Charles feels his stomach lurch. Erik sets a hand on his hip. “Alright?”

 

He can feel the burning at the bottom of his throat. He swallows, gags— cups his hand to his face. He lifts a finger to excuse himself.

 

He goes to the bathroom, is sick in the toilet, almost falls asleep on it, head against the seat, and Raven is grinning when he comes back. She buys him another drink, buys everyone one, the loser, and she smirks when Charles can’t even touch it. She seems fine even after eight of ten glasses.

 

 

 

 

 

They walk home. Charles is still drunk, despite his sick, and he has to lean against Erik the whole way. Practically crawls up the stairs to his flat. Erik pulls off his shoes, his socks, the rest of his clothes; brings him water, a flannel to wipe his face. Charles falls asleep open-mouthed against Erik’s chest.

 

 

 

 

 

Raven comes to the saloon for lunch, a Sunday. Charles doesn’t work Sundays. Neither does Erik, but Erik is elsewhere— has taken the train to Strasbourg. Too close to Germany. It has Charles nervous, as always, when Erik is away.

 

“Hey,” Raven says. Charles looks up from his lunch, sat at the bar. He smiles.

 

“Hey,” he says. He steps down from his stool, accepts her open arms, hugs her back. Her short hair is tied in a tiny ponytail at the back of her head. “How are you?”

 

She smirks. “Better than I was the other week.”

 

Charles huffs a laugh. He sits back down; she takes the stool beside him. “I think I can agree with that,” he says. He’d felt bad for days after, head swimming. He never wants to see rum again. “How’s Hank?”

 

Raven hums, nods her head. “He’s good, he’s good,” she says. “He’s messing around with some films we’ve just got in. You should come see one— he tells me they’re all ‘amazing, you know, some of these could be classics.’”

 

Charles grins. He likes Hank. They’ve been to the museum, the natural history museum, spent hours there. Both of them love the stuff. They’ve made plans to go again.

 

“Erik?” Raven asks.

 

Charles nods. “In Strasbourg,” he says.

 

Gabrielle comes over, smile on her face as she sees Raven, says her hellos. They’re good friends. Raven asks for a glass of water, whatever’s good to eat.

 

“What’s he doing there?” she asks. She shoves a piece of cheese in her mouth. “Erik. In Strasbourg.”

 

Charles huffs. “His usual,” he says. “They’re bringing people across the border. Weapons, too, maybe— he wasn’t sure.”

 

There are still resistance groups active in Germany. They steal arms from army bases, factories, send them out across the continent, most to Republicans, to groups in Austria. But sometimes into France, if the risk is low. To Erik and his people, to take to Poland, Czechoslovakia, to do with them what they will.

 

“Got yourself an odd one,” Raven says. “All mine does is talk film, science. Wouldn’t catch him dead with a gun.”

 

Charles smiles. “Sometimes I wish Erik were the same,” he says. And he does, sometimes. “But I don’t think I’d want him that way. I like him how he is. Even if that does mean he disappears off to places he could never come back from.”

 

He’s argued with himself before, with Erik before, exasperated, why does he do this, put his life on the line while Charles is sat, waiting, why can’t he stay, let someone else do it for once?

 

He never means it. Sometimes his panic gets the better of him, escapes him before he can tell himself: this is just how it is. This is who Erik is, who Charles is, and this is it. He knows why Erik has to fight, and he loves him for it.

 

“What will you do?” Charles asks. “When the war comes. You and Hank— will you go back to America?”

 

Raven snorts. It’s not what Charles had expected.

 

“God, you sound like him,” she says. “The amount of times he’s asked us that. In that condescending tone— oh, I suppose you’ll just be off back to America, where it’s safe, where you can be isolationists like the rest of them, in America.”

 

Charles bites his smile. He can hear it in Erik’s voice. Raven shakes her head.

 

“No,” she says. “We’ll stay here. We’ve lived here long enough— it’s home. And I’m not leaving it just because old Adolf’s getting too big for his boots.”

 

 

 

 

 

They talk a walk, after lunch, down to the river bank.

 

Charles likes her. He almost wishes they’d met sooner. She’s easy to talk to, has this wry sarcastic wit to her. She tells him she used to think Erik aloof when they first met, standoffish; he had no interest in exchanging pleasantries with her and Hank, two petty bourgeoisie Yanks. It was only a few weeks after he’d first arrived in Paris, still had a cut in his lip, bruise around the eye.

 

“He’s strange,” she says. “He’s gotten better, since then. I think Paris has been good for him. I’d wager you’ve been good for him, too. He’s not normally a hugger.”

 

Charles laughs, soft. He looks out over the water, across to the Île Saint-Louis, cream buildings.

 

“He’s stubborn,” he says. “Knows when he’s right— won’t let it go until you know, too.”

 

Raven nods. She nudges his side, says, “Got his looks, though. Have to give him that. Temperamental bastard.”

 

 

 

 

 

Charles meets Erik at the station, twelve-oh-five train, Wednesday. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Each time. He’s going out of his mind not to run to Erik, hug him, kiss him; has his hands tight in his pockets.

 

Erik grins at him. “Hey,” he says. Charles takes one of his bags.

 

He steps closer to him, arms toughing. “Salut,” he says. “How was Strasbourg? Bring back any food?”

 

Erik laughs. “Strasbourg was fine. We got five out from over the border,” he says. “They decided to stay there for a while. They might come to Paris at the end of the week. And yes,” he says. “Cheese. And special-made chocolates.”

 

Charles smiles. They walk to the Métro, pass people, speaking French— Charles’ ears catch all of it. He’s near fluent. One and a half years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Germany. March 1939._



Germany occupies the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Wehrmacht move in, and there are photographs of Hitler in Prague Castle. Charles collects information, Erik writes an article. The country is divided, Slovakia split from it, Czech part made into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

 

It’s a violation of the Munich Agreement. There is news from Britain that Chamberlain has started to realise his mistakes, that he’s begun mobilising the armies of the British Empire, ready for war, just in case. Reports say France is doing the same. All Charles can think is too late; it’s too late, they’re all too far gone. Gas masks are distributed to civilians; he looks at is as though it were there to kill him. He hides it under his bed.

 

There’s no denying it anymore, not for anyone. It’ll come. And there’s nothing to do about it.

 

 

 

 

 

They go to Madame’s, the two of them, to help with dinner. The place is full up, four rooms taken by those Erik has helped smuggle into France; two Austrian families, one German. They haven’t found their own apartments yet, can’t afford it, and Erik tells Madame he’ll pay for their rooms.

 

“You’ll do no such thing,” Madame says. She’s making pastry, rolling it out, folding it back, rolling it out. Charles does his job and peels potatoes over the sink. Erik chops onions beside him. His eyes water.

 

“You can’t keep the place open if no one pays,” Erik says.

 

Madame hums. “I can do what I like,” she says. Charles smirks to himself. He hears Erik sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. April 1939._



Everyone knows this may well be the last spring before war. Madrid fell only yesterday, radio speech from Franco loud in the office. After everything, near three years of it, they lost. The Republicans surrendered.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik has a hand on Charles’ thigh, hidden beneath the coat slung across his lap. Every now and then he squeezes.

 

They’re on a train, Charles’ head lolled against the window. Erik had turned to him, last week, out of nowhere, asked, when was the last time you went to the beach? Saw the sea? What about the Atlantic? and Charles had told him; it was nearly two years ago, crossing the Channel in a ferry that made him sick.

 

And now they’re here, on their way to Le Havre; back to the Channel. Charles is half asleep, near three hours there. He’s excited. Erik is thirty today.

 

“I’ve never been here before,” Erik says. They walk down from the station. Families are out, kids making sandcastles, splashing in the water, parents sunbathing. “If we walk far enough we should find someplace quiet.”

 

Charles hums. He looks to Erik, smirk tugging at his mouth. “And why would you want to find someplace quiet?”

 

Erik looks at him. He’s wearing sunglasses, they both are, round, dark tint. Charles is wearing shorts, feels like a teenager again, in Torquay, ice creams, cricket bats. Erik shrugs.

 

“Don’t you?”

 

Charles huffs a laugh. The sand beneath his feet is forgiving, pebbles lumps on the soles of his shoes.

 

“Yeah, alright,” he says. He looks out over the sea, can see ships in the distance, but no cliffs, no England. “Lead the way.”

 

 

 

 

 

They find a place far along the beach, where no one else is; lay out their blanket.

 

They eat their sandwiches, croissants, drink a bottle of wine between them. Charles lies on his back. He watches the clouds, the shapes of them. He grins when Erik moves over him, between his legs.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, SUN 2 APR]

_Today we went to the beach, Le Havre, for Erik’s 30 th. I loved it— another distraction, maybe. It worked. Perhaps we’ll go again in the summer, this time to the Atlantic, or the Mediterranean, warmer._

_I think I have brought half the sand back home with me, in my shoes, caught in my shorts, stuck to my back. We managed to fuck before the tide came in. It was exciting— exhilarating— I’ve never done anything like that before, exciting in its risk. The sand is my only complaint._

 

 

 

 

 

Passover comes around again, just before Easter. Charles goes with Erik to the Synagogue, wears the same sort of yarmulke he did last year, black satin. They sit at the back, Erik at one side of him, wall at another. He still feels somewhat like an intruder, despite the warm welcomes, the smiles, the older women touching his cheeks. He likes it, though, being part of Erik’s world. It’s nice.

 

He spots Kitty after the service. Everyone is stood, chatting, laughing, drinking. Erik is speaking with someone Charles doesn’t know, a red-haired woman, small boy clinging to her leg. Kitty is by the door, reading, her mother nearby. Theresa. She’s with a man; Kitty’s father. Must have been back six months now.

 

“Hey,” Charles says. Kitty looks up. She smiles. “What are you reading?”

 

She closes her book; shows Charles the cover. Her hair has grown since he last saw her. She’s gotten taller, too. They speak in French.

 

“Jules Verne,” she says. “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

 

Charles hums. He takes it from her, reads the blurb. “Any good?”

 

She shrugs. “Only just started it,” she says. She takes it back. “It’s good so far. Where’s Erik?”

 

Charles smiles to himself. He knows she seeks Erik as a hero, a role model, now that she’s older, knows what he does.

 

“Over there,” he says. He jerks his head. Kitty looks. “Want me to bring him over?”

 

 

 

 

 

She tells the two of them about the other books she’s read— Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Jean Cocteau. Charles Dickens; Charles Baudelaire. She tells them about the kids at school, the fight she was in last month, how she’d given a boy a black eye for calling her a Jew, that tone in his voice, _Jew_ , like it was dirty.

 

Charles meets her father, Carmen, brown hair, brown eyes. He’s taller than Erik; maybe ten years older. He doesn’t look any different from anyone else for having been to Spain. He served in the Great War, too, Erik said— lied about his age. Barely fifteen.

 

He asks to borrow Erik. Things to talk about.

 

Charles stays and speaks with Kitty. The two of them go outside, sit on one of the benches, talk about books, Jane Eyre, Frankenstein. She asks about Erik— what has he been doing, where has he been. She reads each and all of the articles he writes, all of the ones Charles writes. She reads almost every newspaper there is going. She’s fourteen and she’s worried about a war, about anti-Semitism. She’s fourteen.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik comes by after an hour or so. He tells Charles what Carmen had told him— the things he saw, the things he smelt. It almost makes Charles glad he was too scared to go.

 

 

 

 

 

He can’t stop smiling. They’re at the cinema, Raven and Hank’s cinema. It’s his twenty-fifth birthday. They watch Wuthering Heights, just shipped over from America. They sit at the back, almost the only ones in there, kiss in the dark line teenagers.

 

Erik takes him to a restaurant they’ve never been too before, three course meal, big bottle of champagne. Free glass of wine.

 

“Thank you,” Charles says. He grabs Erik’s face with both hands, up on his tiptoes to kiss him, once, dropping back down to wrap arms around his waist, face to his neck. Erik laughs. They’re both tipsy. It’s the nice tipsy.

 

“You’re welcome,” Erik says.

 

They go to bed, sloppy, wet mouths, tight fists. It’s his best birthday in years.

 

“I love you,” he says. He runs his thumb across Erik’s eyebrow, down his nose, over his lips, his chin. His chest almost aches with it, a funny feeling. He never thought he’d be like this with anyone. Had never allowed himself the thought. But now he’s here, in Paris, with a man he loves. “God, I do. I love you.”

 

“I know,” Erik says. He smiles. “I love you too.”

 

It almost feels surreal, when he thinks about it. He loves Erik, Erik loves him. Erik Lehnsherr, journalist, violinist, anti-fascist. Six foot. Those big eyes. He tucks his head beneath Erik’s. He feels safe, warm. In this room there is nothing but them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. June 1939._



Madame tells him her son has moved south. Cannes. He’d been living in Reims, about an hour away, a doctor, but he wanted to get away. Cannes is further from danger, closer to an exit, all it takes is a ship out on the Mediterranean, away to Africa.

 

Charles stands by the sink. “What about you?” he asks. His hands are cold with the water.

 

Madame turns from the stove. “What about me?” she says. “I am here. You are here. This is Paris, monsieur. Where else would anyone rather be?”

 

 

 

 

 

Erik has had letters from friends in Prague. New laws have been decreed by the Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Konstantin von Neurath.

 

Jews can no longer make any new purchases of real estate, of stocks, of bonds; are no longer permitted to enter new business contracts. They are forbidden from buying, from selling, from pawning valuables. Since a German police officer was found killed in Kladno, twenty or so miles outside of Prague, there has been a curfew imposed upon the city. Public buildings have been closed, mayor removed. Everyday fills people with more worry. They don’t know what’s next. And then there’s the St. Louis.

 

Emma had word of it, old colleagues sending post over from America. A passenger ship, almost one thousand people full, Jewish refugees, headed for Havana. Then on to America. Turned way. Canada. Turned away.

 

“What will it take for them to accept us? What has to happen?” Erik asks. “Will they take our corpses?”

 

Mélanie writes the article. Erik says she’s been talking about leaving. Her and her husband, taking their son, their parents. But where? Nowhere wants them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. July 1939._



Charles celebrates Bastille Day for the first time. They go to the Place de la Concorde, Charles, Erik, Raven and Hank, Ruth and Gabrielle. They watch the military parade come past; wave flags and sing La Marseillaise. Erik had taught Charles the words in the week before.

 

The whole city seems packed with people, no one at work, everyone here, celebrating. There’s an ominous feeling. The noise tries to drown it out, but it lingers.

 

 

 

 

 

They take Raven and Hank with them, this time, when they head for the beach. The train is too hot, tiny windows pried open; the bare skin of Charles’ arms sticks to the seats, the varnished wood of the table between them. They’re going to Marseille.

 

Hank and Erik are talking about airplanes. For his lack of interest in war, Hank knows his planes; has his pilot’s licence. Charles looks to Raven, asks, “Have you been before? The Mediterranean?”

 

Raven nods. She’s cooling herself, fan made of paper, patterned wood, pictures of gardens painted across the stretch of it.

 

“Not Marseille, though,” she says. “We went to Minorca. Before the civil war.”

 

Charles hums. He rests his temple against the glass, watches the country pass, all greens, yellows, blue sky. They’re spending the weekend. Two rooms at a B&B. Raven and Hank’s room one bed, Erik and Charles’ two. They’ll push them together.

 

“We went to Le Havre in Spring,” Charles says. “Although I’m led to believe the Med is warmer than the Channel.”

 

Raven laughs. She’s in a sundress, young, beautiful. Pale yellow with pink flowers, the sleeves loose, hem halfway down her calves, neckline wide around her collarbone. The rest of them are plain, men; Erik in his polo shirt, Charles in his shorts. Hank has a straw hat.

 

“I look forward to seeing you at the end of the day,” Raven says. “I imagine your English skin screams at the sight of sun.”

 

Charles huffs, snort of a laugh. He hears Erik beside him, something about Junkers; Hank agrees. Charles wishes they’d shut up about warplanes.

 

 

 

 

 

The water here is so clear, so blue; green. White sand.

 

There are other people, families, couples, here enjoying the Saturday, the sun. Charles looks to Erik, quirk of his eyebrows; almost laughs. Along the length of the beach there are no quiet spots.

 

“We can stay until late,” Charles says. He takes the blanket from under Erik’s arm, follows Raven and Hank to a spare gap in the sands.

 

“Come on,” Raven says. She steps out of her dress, peacock green swimsuit beneath it. The breeze blows the waves of her hair from her face. “Hank won’t swim with me.”

 

Hank sits on the stripes of their blanket, says, “I didn’t say that. I said not yet— it’s too busy.”

 

Charles laughs. He looks to Erik; Erik dips his chin. “Go on,” he says. “We’ll stay here.”

 

Charles grins. Alone, he’d reach over to kiss. Here, he pulls his shirt off over his head, throws it in Erik’s direction, toes off his shoes, tugs off his socks. Raven grabs him by his wrist.

 

They all but fall into the water, stumble up to their waists. Charles throws himself into it, the warmth of it, tips himself on his back and stares at the sky. Raven splashes handfuls at him. He feels young— feels his age, carefree; ducks his head under and pulls at one of Raven’s ankles until she falls. She screams.

 

He can’t help his laughs. He runs hands through his hair, slicks it back. Shakes his head like a dog. He looks and waves to Erik. Erik waves back. Charles can see his grin from here.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s still twenty-odd degrees at two in the morning. They’ve spent the evening eating, drinking, laughing down on the sands. Even Hank is tipsy, flat out on his back, book open on his chest. Raven is beside him, dress folded under her head.

 

Charles sits, legs crossed, propped up on his palms spread behind him.

 

The tide has moved, come in; is going back out again. He watches the waves. Can barely see, pale light of an almost full moon, faraway glows of streetlamps.

 

Erik sits up from where he was, spread out like a starfish. He leans to kiss the side of Charles’ neck. Charles smiles, tilts towards him.

 

“Want to go in?” Erik asks. Charles looks at him. He’s grinning. His eyes have that gleam they get in low light. Charles grins back. He nods. Erik stands, offers Charles his hand.

 

The water is cooler, now; Charles lets it lap at his feet, his ankles. He lets Erik drag him in further, up to the ends of their ribs. He lets out a breath, lets himself get used to the chill, brings himself closer to Erik.

 

They stand like that, a while. Charles brings his arms around Erik’s waist, presses his face to Erik’s neck, breathes. He feels unsteady, alcohol having him buzzed, waves a gentle pull, push, barely there. Erik keeps him with arms around his shoulders; kiss to his forehead.

 

He feels at peace. He shuts his eyes.

 

“Erik,” he says. He feels a hum through Erik’s chest. “I feel nice.”

 

Erik laughs, soft. He pulls back, ducks his head to press his mouth to Charles’, hands moving down, underwater, to Charles’ sides. Charles presses back, opens his mouth to it, fingers stretching into Erik’s hair. He could kiss Erik forever. There’s no fight.

 

“I feel nice, too,” Erik says. He butts their foreheads together. It feels strange, with the water, Erik’s hand on his skin, down beneath the band of his shorts, top of his backside. Charles shakes his head.

 

“Not here,” he says. He kisses Erik once, quick. “I’m not being covered in sand again— fucking— bastard stuff gets everywhere.”

 

There’s a smirk on Erik’s face— he laughs. “Okay,” he says. His palm cups Charles’ jaw. “Go on back to the room. I’ll tell those two we’re heading in.”

 

 

 

 

 

The two beds keep splitting, don’t want to stay pushed together, and Charles can’t stop laughing, Erik fallen between the two of them. He bites at the back of his wrist to keep himself quiet.

 

“Shut up,” Erik says. Charles’ lips fold inwards to stop himself. It doesn’t work. He laughs, a _pfft_ , giggling like a child, and Erik reaches up, bats at him. But he’s grinning when Charles looks at him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. August 1939._



There’s a letter for Erik at the office. Emma calls his name, end of the day, hands it to him.

 

“Came yesterday,” she says. “Forgot about it.”

 

Erik nods. Charles smiles to her, tells her to have a good night. He asked her, earlier, if she’d like to go out with them one time, with Raven, Hank. She said maybe.

 

“What is it?” Charles asks. He rolls his sleeves up his forearms, sweat at the small of his back.

 

Erik shrugs. He folds it in half, sticks it in his back pocket. “Could be anything. I’ll open it at home.”

 

They walk to Charles’ flat: home. Erik’s flat is home, too, only farther from the office; Le Marais. They spend more time at Charles’, lazy, saloon kitchen full of food, saloon bar full of alcohol, only a set of stairs below.

 

Charles sits at his table, eats his way through dinner, some strange shaped pasta from the market, too much butter. He finishes, chin in a hand, other in the middle of open pages. New book, Jules Verne, like Kitty’s.

 

Erik is stood at the counter. He’s still, not even smoking, cigarette between two fingers, lame. Charles watches him, out the corner of his eye. He stubs the thing out half-way done.

 

“Remember I told you about Dachau?” he says. “The camp.”

 

Charles nods. How could he forget?

 

Erik pushes a piece of paper towards him, a letter, the letter, scribbled in German. Charles understands only bits. Erik says, “My father is in there.”

 

Charles looks at him. His face is blank, that stone, nothing there. He nods down at the paper.

 

“That’s from a friend,” he says. “Someone I knew back home. They went back to Düsseldorf, heard it from someone else— heard it from lots of people. They took him after the pogrom, after Grynszpan.” Charles sees the move of his cheek where he bites at it. “Nine months ago,” he says. “No one had any word of my mother.”

 

There’s a heaviness in Charles’ stomach, this sick feeling. He doesn’t know what to say.

 

He gets up, instead, doesn’t say anything, and he’s up on his tiptoes, brings his arms around Erik’s shoulders.

 

Erik comes to him. Back bowed, he presses his face to Charles’ neck. Charles tucks him beneath his chin.

 

“They wouldn’t leave,” he says. His voice is enough to swell Charles’ throat. “After everything. They still wouldn’t leave— still wouldn’t give up their home. Their pride. Now look.”

 

Charles strokes fingers through the hair at the nape of Erik’s neck. The first time he’d told Charles about Dachau was only a few months after the Anschluss, last year. One of the Austrian men had told him how thousands were being sent there. Jews, anti-fascists, homosexuals.

 

“He won’t survive,” Erik says. “Fifty years old— old big-mouthed bastard hasn’t a fucking chance.”

 

He stands straight, brings his hands to his face, heels of his palms pressed to his eyes. He drops them. Head tilted to the ceiling, he breathes. Charles just stands, watches, holds his hands at his wrists.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, THURS 16 AUG]

_Erik’s father is in Dachau. The first of the camps. Thinking of it makes me sick to my stomach. It’s the same place some of Erik’s communists were sent all those years ago, ’33, roundup like stray dogs. There are so many reasons Erik is fighting…This is another._

_Where is his mother? The one in the photographs, big smile, hair always tied back. He doesn’t cry, not after that first time, Tuesday, the night of the letter. Having him shake in my arms, in our bed, my flat, our home, it scares me. It all scares me._

 

 

 

 

 

No one can believe it. The day after Molotov and Ribbentrop meet, in Moscow, sign that damned pact, no one believes it. After the Soviet’s criticisms of Hitler, the Nazis, after the murders and the arrests of so many communists in Germany, Austria, no one believes it.

 

Krzysztof brings a broadsheet paper into the office, holds it up. There it is. Black and white.

 

The Nazis and the Soviets have signed a neutrality pact.

 

Sara is the only one to say anything. A member of the French Communist Party, _Parti communiste français_ , the PCF, she sits at her desk, says, “Fuck.”

 

 

 

 

 

Two days later it comes: Britain and Poland have signed an agreement, an Agreement of Mutual Assistance. It promises mutual military assistance in case of attack or invasion by another European nation. It doesn’t specify.

 

“Looks like it’s close,” Emma says. She stands in the doorway, leant against it, hair tied limp at the back of her neck; she’s tired. No one can sleep. Charles lies awake until his eyes hurt, Erik beside him, awake, too, but silent, they both are. Emma walks over to them, their desk. She looks to Charles. “Let’s get drunk tonight.” It’s Friday. “Harry’s,” she says. “Bring Raven and Hank.”

 

 

 

 

 

They go, the five of them, squeeze themselves around a booth, oxblood leather seats.

 

There’s no drinking games, not this time. Charles has learnt his lesson. The thought of rum makes his stomach turn.

 

Erik is near silent throughout the night, his head elsewhere. Charles sets a hand on his arm, when conversation settles itself between Raven and Emma.

 

Erik looks at him. His head has been bowed the whole time, shoulders hunched over, fingers picking at one another.

 

“Alright?” Charles says. Erik’s eyes look at him. The skin around them is dark, they’re sinking inwards, no sleep, too many cigarettes. Erik hums.

 

“Alright,” he says. Charles’ hand squeezes. He knows there’s nothing he can do, not really. All he is is here. He hopes it helps.

 

 

 

 

 

Tens of thousands of children are evacuated out of the city. There are fears of air raids, bombardments; street lights are turned out. The Louvre is near emptied.

 

It’s so close now it feels like suffocating.


	3. Chapter 3

**PART THREE**

**1939-1940**

  1. _Paris, France. September 1939._



This is where it really begins. The news comes through on the radio, Chamberlain on the BBC. This country is now at war with Germany.

 

_Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against— brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution— and against them I am certain that the right will prevail._

 

“It’s not enough,” Erik says. He’s sat at the chair by the desk. He’s leaning his head against his hand.

 

“It might be,” Charles says. He gets up from the edge of the bed, rug soft under his feet, and he sets a hand on Erik’s shoulder, rubs there, tense. It might be, but it won’t. No one is ready for a war that has been creeping for six years.

 

 

 

 

 

Australia, New Zealand, India, they follow. South Africa. They all declare war on Germany. None of it is fast enough to save Poland, the sacrifice, the last straw in all the madness. The Germans surround Kraków, capture it. They encircle Warsaw. And then the Soviets invade from the east.

 

In Paris it feels as though half the city is missing. Boys and men have been called up to war, to serve, Jacques gone from the office, Krzysztof, mobilised into the French Army. Gone.

 

Charles sits at their desk, fiddles with the edges of papers, stacked. Erik is putting together the slips of information that have come through. What’s heard over the radio, what the government puts out, what the army says.

 

News is that Gamelin has taken forty divisions over the border, into German territory, the idea to attack Germany’s west while its troops are busy in Poland, east.

 

The French Army is outdated, is what Erik says.

 

“They still think they’re fighting in 1916,” he says. “Their highest ranks are stuffed full of old men who fought at Passchendaele, at the Somme. Things have changed. But they won’t listen. They won’t change.”

 

 

 

 

 

September 24th comes around again.

 

They still take Sundays off, despite the war. They lie in bed until late.

 

“Everyone else has gone,” Charles says. It’s like Spain, all over again, the thought stinging in his head, men have been sent off to fight, men like him, men younger than him, and yet, here he is. His hands link together on his stomach; he looks up at the ceiling. He says, “Maybe I should go.”

 

Erik’s head turns towards him; he sees it out the corner of his eye, hears the movement against the pillowcase.

 

“Go where?” Erik asks. “Back to England?” he says; “Fight for King and Country?”

 

There’s hostility in his voice, patronising, and Charles wants to shout, he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what to do!

 

Instead he shrugs. “Why shouldn’t I?” he says. He shuts his eyes, says it, says, “God knows you won’t be hanging around long.”

 

There’s an ugly silence, heavy. He’s known it for so long, now, ever since that first time, that first Vienna. Erik will leave when war comes. And now war has come.

 

“I’m not joining an army,” Erik says. “I’m not being sent places I don’t want to go, being told what to do. I’m not just being another fish in a barrel for Wehrmacht men to shoot at. That’s what you’d be doing. Not to mention the British Army shoot men like us.”

 

Charles breathes. He feels like a child, lost, roaming, looking for something to hold onto. He thinks he could do it, fight, be on the side of the good, but the thought of dying for it scares him; the thought of it, no more love, no more nothing, it terrifies him. All those others have already gone and done it. What makes him so different?

 

He sits up, knees drawn close. He rests his forearms on them, rests his chin on his forearms. He looks across the bedroom and down the hall, open door.

 

“How long do you think it will last?” he asks.

 

Erik shifts, sits up beside him, leans against him; head on Charles’ shoulder.

 

“I don’t know,” he says. “Last one was four years.”

 

The last one. The last time the whole world was up in arms. Four years.

 

“That’s twice as long as I’ve known you,” Charles says. He turns to Erik— the thought unsettles him, stomach turning over. Erik lifts his head, looks back. “What if it’s longer, this time? What if you’re gone so long we forget each other? What if it never ends— what if you don’t come back?”

 

Erik shushes him, palm to his face. “Don’t do that,” he says. “I’m not going yet. I won’t forget you. And I will come back.”

 

“But how can you know?” Charles asks. He wants to go back, to 1937, have two more years again, and again, and again. He looks at Erik, his eyes, his nose, that stupid scar above his mouth. “How can you know you’ll survive? How can you know any of it?”

 

Erik shakes his head. He says, “I don’t know. I don’t know, Charles, but I know I’ll be back for you.” His thumb strokes soft at the round of Charles’ cheek. “And that you’ll be here safe. I’ll send you letters from wherever I am, and you’ll write articles. Show the world what I see. And then when it ends, I’ll see you again.”

 

Charles looks down. Erik kisses his forehead, rests himself there. He can talk himself out of anything. Charles isn’t an idiot. But he lets himself be lulled, too tired, jaded, he wants it all to be over already and it’s only just begun.

 

 

 

 

 

They don’t go anywhere to celebrate. They stay in Charles’ flat, all day, don’t even go town to the saloon to drink. They split the whisky and the wine kept in the kitchen cupboard.

 

They lie in the bath together, Erik between Charles’ legs, back against his chest. Like this Charles can hold Erik tight to him, can kiss the top of his head. He often finds himself wishing it was like this, that he were taller— to be able to lean down and kiss the back of Erik’s neck, not reach up, to be able to tuck Erik’s head easy beneath his chin. Maybe he’ll have to steal some of Ruth’s heeled shoes. Force his feet into them.

 

He kisses Erik when they step out of the bathroom, still wet; find their way to the bedroom. He holds Erik’s face between his hands, mouth pushing, desperate, there’s nothing in the world he’d rather do.

 

Erik’s hair sticks to his face, to the pillows beneath his head. Charles is on top of him, warmth of their bodies together giving him goosebumps. Erik grunts as Charles’ teeth bite at his lip.

 

“Fuck me,” Charles says. He pants. Their noses press; he closes his eyes. Opens them. “Please.”

 

Erik pushes his mouth back to Charles’, hand coming up to his jaw.

 

He turns them over, mattress going again, creaking, Charles waiting for the day it breaks, springs splitting upwards.

 

It’s sad. Charles almost wants to cry, God, his chest aches, his eyes water; he wills it away, it comes back. Erik looks down at him, shushes him, big hands cupping Charles’ cheeks.

 

“Hey,” he says. He rests on his forearms, body flush with Charles’, a welcome weight, warmth, breeze coming through the open window, the summer curtains. “Stop it,” he says. He smiles. He’s so beautiful. He kisses Charles’ eyebrow, eyelid, side of his nose, end of his nose. Charles can’t help but smile back. He hiccups a breath.

 

“It’s fine,” he says. His hands bracket Erik’s ribs. He rubs circles with his thumbs, kisses Erik’s mouth, says, “I’m fine.”

 

Erik looks at him. With Charles, he’s like this, no one else sees him like this, has him like this.

 

“Do you just want to sleep?” he asks. His cock is still hard, pressed above Charles’ hip; Charles’ still half-hard, too, he wants it.

 

He shakes his head. “No,” he says. He digs nails between two of Erik’s ribs, watches Erik wince, eyes scrunch. “Fuck me. I still want you to fuck me.”

 

Erik nods. He kisses Charles, sits back, grabs the Vaseline from the top of bedside drawers.

 

Charles loves the feel of his fingers, almost more intimate than his cock— the fingers he writes with, types with, the fingers which hold a violin bow, a pen, inside Charles.

 

Erik watches Charles’ face, always does, watching for pleasure, for _good, it’s good_ ; Charles bites his lip, groans, hips shifting up from the bed. They’ve fucked so many times, never tire of it, always so good, breathless. Charles curls fingers in Erik’s hair, nape of his neck, tight. Erik pulls his fingers out, away.

 

The head of his cock presses at Charles’ hole. He uses his hand to move it in circles, a tease, pressing harder, barely, pre-come sticky, wet.

 

Charles whines. He pulls Erik’s hair. Erik grunts— he’s smirking— he pushes, Charles relaxes, moans, Erik’s cock pushing in, all the way.

 

It’s always a stretch, feels so full— it doesn’t hurt, not really, not anymore, just this strange ache deep in him. It feels good, nothing will compare.

 

Erik rolls his hips, slow, groan low at the back of his throat.

 

“Harder,” Charles says. He’s so wound up and he just wants to forget about it all, all of it.

 

Erik looks up at him. His hands make the mattress dip either side of Charles’ chest. One of Charles’ hands rests on the sheets, other loosening in Erik’s hair, moving to his face. They’re both sweating, still wet, they’ll have to shower again come morning.

 

Charles swears as Erik pulls back, cock slipping out just to jerk forward, back in, harsh. It almost knocks the wind out of him. Erik smirks, does it again; he’s relentless, Charles can barely catch his breath.

 

He reaches up. Erik comes to him, not even kissing, just breathing, side of his face pressed to the side of Charles’.

 

Charles winds his arms around Erik’s back, hooking himself around, he wants to be covered whole, enveloped, the heels of his feet against the soft flesh at the top of Erik’s arse.

 

Erik moans. It’s low, guttural, right by Charles’ ear.

 

His hips slow, less brutal, his fingers running themselves through Charles’ hair. He smells of soap and sweat and bathwater. He’s only just shaved but there are missed patches that scratch at Charles’ jawline.

 

Charles’ breaths catch on whines; Erik’s cock rubs inside him, his own caught between them, aching, leaking.

 

He reaches a hand under Erik, down his stomach. Erik lifts his head to look at him, grins. Charles kisses him as he wraps a hand around his dick, as Erik thrusts back, forth, back, forth. The sound of skin is loud around them.

 

“Fuck.” Charles throws his head back, spine curving, arching. His knuckles brush Erik’s abdomen as he fists at his cock. He moans, long, Erik’s name in his mouth, two syllables, _Eh-_ rik.

 

Erik bites at his neck, just below his ear, behind, where hair can hide a bruise.

 

Charles comes, repeats Erik’s name like a call to prayer, can’t keep it from his mouth, his moans, his toes curling, nails in Erik’s shoulder blade, come spilling up onto the circle of his fingers, his belly; he feels so good it’s like he can’t see, breathe; white noise. Erik fucks him through it, fast moves of his hips, cock dragging.

 

He breathes against Charles’ neck, hot. Charles cranes forward, noses at him until he turns; kisses him.

 

“Please,” he says. Erik looks at him. Charles wipes his hand on the bedsheets, fingers coming to Erik’s hair, still damp. “Come in me,” he says. “Please. Please.”

 

He’s more sensitive, like this, after he’s come, each of Erik’s thrusts sending these little shocks through him.

 

Erik groans. He pushes his face to Charles’ neck, low grunts; his hips speed up, lose any rhythm.

 

He moans Charles’ name, once, as he comes, cock pushing deep, wet, the warmth familiar as Charles moans, too, lets Erik use him to wring himself out, still moving. He stills with one last jerk. Charles feels him relax.

 

There’s a wince as Erik pulls out, kisses Charles’ temple; staggers his way to the bathroom for a wet flannel.

 

Charles lies there, two of them quiet as Erik wipes himself, then Charles, fingers curious, as ever, back to Charles’ hole, stretched, Erik’s come a strange stinging where it leaks out, is mopped away, careful.

 

“Alright?” Erik asks. Charles turns his head to look at him. He nods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. October 1939._



War has been waging for over a month. There’s no big difference, not really, not here. There are less men, boys, less people turning up at the saloon, but there are no bombs, no fighting. Paris is safe.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik gets a letter from someone in Vienna, someone still there. More Jews are being deported from Austria, but not to Germany, this time, the trains take them elsewhere. News has passed from person to person, from someone at the Czech-Polish border; perhaps it is there they are sent.

 

By now both Chamberlain and Daladier have declined Hitler’s offer of peace. The war will go on.

 

Kitty’s father has gone again, Carmen, to fight his third war.

 

 

 

 

 

Ruth sits with them, in the saloon, tired of playing piano, no one there to listen. It’s a Tuesday. The place is almost empty.

 

“There’s more talk of moving away,” Ruth says. She pulls her hair behind an ear, doesn’t look at Gabrielle, cleaning glasses behind the bar. “Everyone I speak to is nervous, like they’re just waiting for the ship to go down. They see what’s happening in Austria and think it will happen here.”

 

Erik shakes his head. “There’s no need to panic yet.”

 

Ruth looks up at him, this exasperated look on her face, lines under her eyes, says, “And what about when it is time to panic? When the Nazis come rolling up the Seine— what do we do then? Dye our hair and paint ourselves as Aryan?”

 

Charles sips at his drink. Erik’s mouth is a flat line.

 

 

 

 

 

Good news comes on a Friday, after work, sat around a booth in Harry’s. Raven and Hank have closed the cinema for the night, Ruth and Gabrielle have closed the saloon for the night. Emma has left the office.

 

The lot of them are crammed around the table, leather of the seat groaning each time any of them moves, thigh to thigh, elbow to elbow. The place is still packed, despite the war, or maybe because of.

 

Everyone is talking, Gabrielle telling Erik of the time when Charles was only a week in Paris, drunk off his feet, how she’d found him asleep on the bar the next morning, and Charles is about to defend himself when Hank stands, clank of a fork against his glass. They all look to him.

 

He’s nervous, scratching at the back of his neck, _um_. Everyone has grins like foxes as they watch him, teasing. Charles nudges at Erik’s foot.

 

“I just wanted to— um, well— thank you all for coming,” Hank says. He doesn’t like talking in front of them all, is more of a behind-the-scenes-reel-changing man, all nerves.

 

“You’re welcome,” Emma says. She’s swirling the wine left at the bottom of her glass, white. “Please spit it out. You’re making me itch just looking at you.”

 

Raven is pregnant. She says it, takes Hank’s hand and stands up beside him.

 

Charles’ grin is so wide his mouth will ache with it, later, gormless. He gets to his feet, hugs Raven— the women can’t believe it, all want to crowd her, ask her questions.

 

The baby is due in April, all things go to plan.

 

Everyone is smiling, laughing, happy— this is something good, finally, something to look forward to, something to keep their minds off all else, but Charles looks to Erik, and there’s something wrong in his smile, in his eyes. Charles watches him talk with Hank, nodding along, congratulating, but there’s this look on him that clenches in Charles’ throat.

 

 

 

 

 

“I saw your face,” Charles says. He sits at his side of the bed, pillows behind his back. He watches Erik undress, trousers already off, kicked away, his hands at the buttons of his shirt. He doesn’t say anything. “Everyone was so excited, and you— I saw your face, Erik.”

 

He watches Erik hang his shirt over the back of the desk chair; moles at the sides of his spine, birthmarks.

 

They’ve had times like this the past few weeks. Erik is so stuck inside his own head and sometimes he doesn’t want to come out. There’s been days where he doesn’t speak for hours— they go to work, they come home, they go to bed. Charles can’t complain, not with everything that has happened, is happening. He’s just happy Erik is still here.

 

“You don’t think they should be having a baby,” he says.

 

Erik toes off his socks, leaves them where they land. “What does it matter what I think?” he says. “She’s pregnant. It’s fucking— it’s stupid. But she’s pregnant. That’s all there is to it.”

 

Part of Charles thinks it, too, how can he not? A baby and a war, how can it end well?

 

The bed dips as Erik settles himself, lies down, flat on his back.

 

“I don’t understand,” he says. The alcohol has loosened him, he says, “I don’t understand how they think it’s a good thing. She could give birth one day and have a bomb drop on her house the next.”

 

Charles reaches over to him, fingers running through his hair, top of his forehead.

 

“I know,” he says. “It’s okay. You don’t have to understand. We don’t have to understand.”

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, MON 23 OCT]

_Raven and Hank are expecting a child. She’s three months gone, isn’t showing yet. Due date is sometime in April, another spring baby, like Erik and I._

_It is exciting, the two of them so happy— it brings happiness to all those they share it with. All except Erik, but he has good reason, and I understand. He’s had no more word about his father, nor his mother. He doesn’t talk about it._

_He received another letter today. The Germans have set up a ‘ghetto’ in Lublin— Poland. They’re sending the Jewish population there. It’s not a camp, but what is it? It points to no good ends. And the war, well— French troops are just settling themselves in along the Maginot, waiting. The German Army has finished with Poland. So now unto France, presumably._

  1. _Paris, France. November 1939._



They get the news a day later— all go to the saloon, stand at the bar— drink to the man who tried to kill Hitler, blow him up in a beerhall. Charles wonders if it would truly be as easy as that.

 

 

 

 

 

They decide to go to the cinema. Raven has told them they’ve just got a new film in, sent over from friends in America, _The Wizard of Oz_. It’s two hours of nonsense, of escapism, a chance to sit together, mindless, watch a screen. It has Charles laughing, turning to see Erik, grinning in the low light.

 

When they get home, go to bed, they sleep together, gentle; faces held close together as they breathe one another in. Erik strokes fingers through Charles’ hair, after, hums the song, sings it under his breath, the one from the film. _Somewhere, over the rainbow, blue birds fly._ His voice is so soft.

 

 

 

 

 

God, Charles loves him. He wakes up to Erik beside him every morning and he knows that some time, soon, he will wake up to nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. December 1939._



Not much has happened in three months. The world has yet to come to an end.

 

In the office they write up what news they can, about the Germans, the Soviets. The United States has declared its neutrality. Erik doesn’t let Emma forget it.

 

He teases about it, Raven and Hank, too, but there’s hostility hidden behind it, this bitterness. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, he says. America would be begging for help. What if it was Protestants being round up and murdered in their own countries? Would FDR come to the rescue then?

 

Every letter that arrives with Erik’s name has Charles on edge. It’s never good news, wherever its from, all end with Erik’s fists clenched, an ache in his jaw. Last month over a thousand students in Prague were sent to camps. Kids.

 

The last one was Poland, Warsaw. Jews have been ordered to wear armbands, Star of David sewn onto them, obvious, a marker.

 

“So they know who’s who,” Erik says. “Only the Orthodox are obvious. Without labels they don’t know who’s a Jew. They saw me in the street— saw Ruth, Gabrielle— would they know? Did you know?”

 

Nothing good comes of this. Nothing good could ever come of this.

 

 

 

 

 

Kitty is fifteen now. Her school has finished for the holidays; she’s taken to coming to the office, sitting at one of the empty desks, standing over Erik’s shoulder.

 

She rifles through things, brings books, asks questions, her mother at work. She doesn’t speak about her father.

 

“My father was a tunneller,” Erik says. They sit in a café, keep themselves warm. Charles has half a croissant in his mouth. “In the war. Worst job there was. He was younger than I am now.”

 

Charles looks at him. This is the first mention of his father since August, the letter, Dachau.

 

Charles wipes at his mouth, crumbs at the back of his hand. He says, “My father didn’t tell me much about his service.” He wraps hands around his mug. “He was a Lieutenant. Didn’t like talking about it.”

 

His father killed himself, five years after the armistice. Charles was nine.

 

 

 

 

 

Madame is still here. They go see her, stay for dinner at the B&B. Paris still has its tourists. Only one Austrian family is left in a room upstairs.

 

“I told you,” Madame says. She brings them their food, beef, red wine sauce, mashed potatoes so soft they’re almost cream. “I will always be here. The Tower could be burning and I would be in that kitchen.”

 

 

 

 

 

Erik’s fingers fiddle with Charles’ hair. He tucks it behind an ear; watches it bounce back, too short. His palm brackets the curve of Charles’ jaw.

 

“I have something to tell you,” he says. They lay close, one of Erik’s thighs pressed between Charles’. Charles looks at him. There was another letter, this morning. He didn’t tell Charles what it said. “Next month,” he says.

 

Charles doesn’t say anything. His eyebrows furrow. Oh.

 

“You’re leaving,” he says. Erik nods.

 

His hand pulls away from Charles’ face, down his neck, thumb by his Adam’s apple.

 

“I’ve had word from friends in Poland,” he says. “They’re working on building up resistance in the aftermath of the invasion. They need everyone they can find.”

 

Charles nods. “So you’re going to Poland,” he says. Where there are ghettos made and being made, Stars of David on armbands.

 

“Warsaw,” Erik says. “But we’ll be stopping along the way, seeing what can be done. If we can help.”

 

Charles hums. He doesn’t want to say anything, scared he’ll get angry, feels it twisting up in him. Why does Erik have to do this, of all people, why him, when even the military can’t win, with tanks, airplanes— what is it Erik and his band of Merry Men can do? Instead he tucks himself beneath Erik’s chin; drapes an arm over Erik’s waist to bring him closer. They’ve already had that argument ten times over. Charles knows the answer. He understands the answer.

 

Erik kisses the top of his head. He’s so gentle here. To everyone else he’s the journalist, the anti-fascist, the friend, the fellow Jew— Erik Lehnsherr. The son, the brother, the uncle. The violinist. To Charles he’s this. Only to Charles he’s this. And he’s going to go.

 

Charles feels the sting at his eyes. He tells himself that he’s known this is what will happen, but it doesn’t help, not when it’s right in front of him. This isn’t a hunter going after a fox. This is the fox running headfirst into the hounds, the horses, and expecting to come out clean on the other side.

 

He tries to keep quiet, feign sleep, but his breath catches on a sob.

 

Erik’s hands reach for his face; pull him way from his chest. He shushes him. Charles can’t bare to look up, to look at him. He shuts his eyes.

 

“Hey,” Erik says. His thumbs swipe lines along Charles’ cheeks, take away any tears. “Come on,” he says. He didn’t use to be good at this. First time Charles was upset he was to useless it made Charles laugh. “Liebling. Look at me.”

 

The endearment makes it worse. Charles isn’t sure what it means, but they never use endearments— there’s no sweethearts, no my loves, no mon cœurs, but now this. German.

 

Charles opens his eyes. Erik smiles at him.

 

He’s so beautiful. It’s all Charles can think when he looks at him, he’s beautiful in ways that are devastating, heart-breaking, face made to be haunted, big eyes, lines in his forehead.

 

“It’s going to be fine,” he says. Charles shakes his head, knows that’s not true, doesn’t want to hear it. “No, it is,” Erik says. His knuckles brush along the side of Charles’ face, push hair away from his eyes, his temples. “I’m not letting some Nazi bastard kill me. I’m not letting them keep me from you.”

 

“But what makes you think you’ll survive?” Charles asks. He screws his eyes shut, tears itching at the corners; opens them. “All the people killed in wars, all your— all the hatred of Jews, what makes you think you’ll make it out alive?”

 

Erik looks at him. They both know. It’s not going to be fine. All the talk of surviving, of slaying the dragon, it’s all sweet nothings. They’ve never even spoke about it, Charles always letting it drop, Erik always saying, _it’s going to be fine_.

 

“I have to go,” Erik says. “You know I do. This is my fight, I can’t just sit back and watch others die— I can’t watch them destroy my people and do nothing, stay here. I have to fight. You know I do. You’ve always known.”

 

Charles knows. He knows he’ll have to let Erik go, next month, and he knows that might be it: the end.

 

The thought has his face twisting. He reaches to brush Erik’s arm from him, turns over, away. He doesn’t want Erik seeing him, not like this; he feels like howling, screaming.

 

“Charles,” Erik says. The bed shifts, creaks as he sits up, sets a hand on Charles’ shoulder, another at his waist. Charles curls in on himself. He feels like a child again, all he needs is a teddy bear, a copy of CS Lewis, a box of tissues.

 

Erik shakes him, gentle. His hands are warm.

 

Charles sniffs, grim, wipes at his nose with the end of a fist. He’s made the pillow wet. He breathes.

 

“I don’t want you to die,” he says. He feels pathetic, tells himself to stop, pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes.

 

“I know,” Erik says. “I don’t particularly want to die, either.”

 

Charles huffs, wet noise at the back of his throat. He cranes his neck, sees Erik looking down at him, lips tight in his grin, toothless.

 

His fingers come to keep Charles’ hair from his face. It flops back down just for him to push it back again. “I’ll do everything I can to come home, I promise. It’s not a suicide mission,” he says. “Not anymore. Not when I have you to come home to.”

 

Charles looks at him. He can’t imagine him gone, in faux army uniform, gun on his back, in his hand. He’s a violinist and a journalist. If they’d met in another time, another life, they could just sit here, in Paris, until they grow old, die.

 

Charles says, “I love you. I don’t want to see you go. I don’t want you to go.”

 

“I know,” Erik says. “I love you, too. More than anything. You know I do.”

 

God, how Charles wants to scream, keep Erik safe forever, here, in this room, this bed.

 

Erik lays down, his front to Charles’ back, says, “Please don’t cry.”

 

Charles almost laughs. He smiles, wet. He wipes his hand clean on the bedsheets; reaches for Erik’s, sat on his stomach, soft roll of his belly.

 

“Just hold onto me,” he says. He feels as though he could cry again at any moment, its right there behind his eyes; he almost wishes he’d had the chance to get drunk. “Please,” he says. “Just hold me. Don’t— don’t tell me you’re going,” he says. “Don’t say it again. Not until it’s time.”

 

He doesn’t want to count down the days. He can’t. Erik kisses at the nape of his neck.

 

“Okay,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

He brings his Hanukiah to Charles’, this year. It sits beside the one Charles bought. Both are lit.

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone is unsure of celebrations. Families are missing husbands, sons, brothers. But the war is going slow. France is still France.

 

Charles smiles, hands at Erik’s waist. They stand in the saloon, tables pushed to one side, the place empty, Christmas Eve night.

 

“I know you know how to dance,” Erik says. “You can’t have that accent and not know how to dance.”

 

They’ve brought Charles’ record player down, set it on the bar top. Erik had flicked his way through Gabrielle’s old records, found one, waltz music. Every now and then Charles drifts to it, that thought, that Erik will be gone, this time next month, but he has himself drift away again; reverse, ignore it. Erik is here now. They are both here now.

 

“I know how to dance,” he says. One of Erik’s hands moves to take one of Charles’. They’ve been drinking. “Do you?”

 

Erik nods. “My mother had me try everything when I was young,” he says. They stand too close for a proper dance, Charles leant against him, they’re like kids at a wedding. “My toes are yet to recover from the ballet attempt.”

 

Charles grins. He lifts his head, says, “Ballet?”

 

Erik hums, starts to move them around the floor. He steps forward and Charles steps backwards; he steps backwards and Charles steps forwards.

 

“Yes, ballet,” he says. “There was piano, violin. Painting— you’ll know how that ended.”

 

Charles huffs a laugh. They move in circles.

 

“She wanted me to try everything at least one,” Erik says. The music stops, pause between songs. Charles rests the side of his face at Erik’s shoulder.

 

 

 

 

 

The mood at the office isn’t as bleak as it was a few days ago. The initial panic is over. Everyone left— the women, Charles, Erik, they try to get on as normal. News comes in and they write about it, as every other newspaper and newsletter does. The first Indian troops have arrived in France, come to fight for the Empire. The winter is getting colder.

 

 

 

 

 

New Year’s Eve is quieter than last year. Than any other year. There are no big parties, no big shows, everyone shuttered up in their homes. There are nose and light restrictions, in case of air raids.

 

They still celebrate, the saloon closed the whole day, whole night. They have their own party, the lot of them, the usual, Ruth and Gabrielle, Hank and Raven, Emma; the women from work, Sara, Mélanie. The bar is there for anyone and everyone to duck behind, serve themselves.

 

It’s not even midnight by the time Charles is legless. He sticks his ear to Raven’s stomach, showing, now, five months in.

 

“I can’t hear anything,” he says. His voice is loud. The record player is out again; it plays for people to dance to. Charles has seen Erik and Sara laughing as they step on each other’s toes. He cups a hand over his other ear, tries to block out the music. He shakes his head. “No, it’s no good,” he says. He sits up straight. “Can your baby not shout?”

 

Raven snorts a laugh. “No,” she says. “Fortunately. God knows what they would say, being around such heathens. Just think of the foul language they’d pick up.”

 

Charles grins.

 

 

 

 

 

When the time comes, Erik comes over to him; grabs him by the hand, pulls him up.

 

The clock ticks over into a new year, a new decade. Erik holds Charles’ face and kisses him. Charles holds onto Erik’s shirt and kisses him back. They both taste of vodka.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. January 1940._



[JOURNAL ENTRY, MON 1 JAN]

_So, it is 1940. My head is pounding. The both of us are covered in bruises from teeth, the bedsheets are a disgrace. I suppose I better enjoy it while I can._

_Here’s to a good 1940. I can hope._

 

 

 

 

 

Erik gives Charles an envelope, middle of the work day. He tells him to open it.

 

Charles runs fingers around its edges. He asks, “What is it?”

 

“Maybe you’ll find out if you open it,” Erik says. Charles frowns at him.

 

The flap isn’t fastened down with spit, there’s no name on the front, no address; Charles reaches in and grabs the papers inside. He looks up.

 

Erik has half a grin on his face. He sits on the edge of Charles’ desk. Charles has his own, now, half the place empty.

 

Charles reads it, all French. It’s a citizenship paper— certificate. Forged. Charles Francis Xavier, French citizen since 1925. His picture sits on the left-hand side.

 

“Just in case,” Erik says. He shrugs. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

 

He has them for other immigrants he knows, for the ones he’s smuggled here. For Ruth and Gabrielle, too. They are all French citizens, now, have been since the 1920s, and they are no longer of the Jewish faith on paper. They can’t be taken away for being Jews if no one knows they’re Jews.

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t want to feel anything else, tonight. He wants Erik, all of him; he wants bruises for the next week, forever, he wants marks of Erik’s love, his lust, his want. He wants Erik to come inside him, make him his, again, again.

 

Erik moans. His face is all scrunched up as Charles clenches around him, his mouth hanging open, spit wet. He pulls out just to turn Charles over, tug him up to his knees, push back in again. Charles cries out, he’s burning, Erik’s hand spanking harsh at him.

 

God, he needs this, mindless. There’s the ridiculous sound of the headboard against the wall.

 

Charles turns over, once more, face to face as Erik drives himself closer. He grabs hold of one of Erik’s hands, brings it to his throat. Erik looks at him. He nods his head. “Please,” he says.

 

He comes with Erik’s fingers tight around his neck, makes these weak sounds as he fists himself, can’t catch his breath to moan. Erik watches him, this look on his face, eyes dark. He lets go of Charles’ throat, pushes his cock in deep, and Charles’ chest heaves, eyes hazy.

 

Charles feels it as Erik comes, heavy jerks of his hips, arms giving out to drop him closer. He bites hard into the curve of Charles’ shoulder.

 

Tomorrow is the day. The train arrives at eleven o’clock. In less than twelve hours Erik will be gone.

 

Charles fists his hands in Erik’s hair, drags his face up and holds him still, kisses him. Erik kisses back.

 

 

 

 

 

All Charles can think is: this might be the last time.

 

He wakes up with his arms around Erik. They fuck again, slower, more _making love_. There are purple marks all over him, he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror and his arse is red from Erik’s hand. His thighs ache. They, too, have bruises. Fingerprints. They leave whorls at his hips, his ribs, his waist.

 

Will this be the last time that they bathe together? Is this the last time they’ll share breakfast, coffee, tea?

 

He watches Erik stand at the sink. The light from the window makes him look like an apparition, a ghost. Charles tells himself to remember what Erik looks like here, in their home, Charles’ flat.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s time to go to the station. Erik will meet a friend on the way, few stops down the line, go on to Switzerland. Poland is so far away. They have to pass through Austria, what was Czechoslovakia, what is now the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. They’ll stop along the way, help people, but Poland is the end destination. Warsaw.

 

Charles feels like begging, crying, getting down on his knees and clinging to Erik’s leg, wrapping himself around like a child, a toddler. But he can’t. He understands.

 

The sound of the train makes him feel sick. They’ve said the goodbye they can’t say in public, back home, soft kisses, no lust, wet cheeks. Here all Charles can do is stand by Erik’s side, arms brushing.

 

Part of him wishes Erik would change his mind. Turn to him, here on the platform, say, you know what? Sod it. Never mind. Let’s move to the tiny island in the Bois de Vincennes, claim it as our own, build a wooden house. Hide there until it all goes away. But he knows, he knows Erik has to do this, and he’s proud of him, it makes his chest burst he’s so proud of him. He just hopes the world comes to its senses and stops this all before it goes too far, too long.

 

Erik mumbles something to himself; Charles looks to him. He shoves a hand in his trouser pocket, pulls something out. A gold chain.

 

“Here,” he says. “Almost forgot. Turn around.”

 

Charles’ eyebrows furrow. He wants to ask, _what?_ , but he doesn’t, he does as he’s told.

 

Erik’s arms come around his shoulders, fingertips brushing at the nape of his neck, violin calluses rough, fastening a necklace’s clasp. The pendant sits below where Charles’ collarbones meet. Charles looks down at it. He turns back, looks to Erik.

 

“My mother’s,” Erik says. He touches the pendant, Star of David, Shield of David, lets his hand linger at Charles’ chest. He drops it back down by his side. Not here. “For luck,” he says. “It’ll keep you safe.”

 

Charles feels the familiar twist, the sting, thinks, God, why does he have to do this, here, of all places?

 

He reaches fingers to fiddle with the star. He smiles. “Thank you,” he says. He ducks his head, deep breath in, out, says, “God. I love you.”

 

He can’t think of what else to say. It’s all he can say.

 

Erik smiles. Other passengers are boarding, suitcases; all Erik has is a big fat rucksack, what hikers use, explorers, full of stuff. Pistol and magazines shoved to the bottom, his satchel slung over one shoulder. Somewhere down the platform someone blows the whistle.

 

“I have to go,” Erik says. His eyes are big. Shiny. He wants to cry, too. It makes it worse.

 

Charles all but dives at him, wraps arms around him, tucks them under the rucksack. Holds him.

 

Erik holds him back, both of them holding on so tight. Charles hides his face in the side of Erik’s neck. They can hug here, no one knows, they could be brothers, cousins, saying goodbye before war. It’s fine. It has to be.

 

“I love you so much,” Charles says. It spills its way out of him. “I love you. I’ll be thinking of you every day. All day.” He breathes, fat tears dropping heavy down his face, silent, says, “I’m going to miss you. Please don’t fucking die.”

 

Erik hiccups a laugh. His hand cups the back of Charles’ head, just for a moment, and he pulls back. He looks at Charles.

 

“I love you,” he says. “I’ll write when I can. Tell you about the people I meet.” He breathes, reaches out one last time to wipe tear tracks from Charles’ face. “I love you. I’ll come back for you. And my mother’s necklace.”

 

Charles smiles, dopey, twisted with sadness. Neither of them say it. There’s no goodbye spoken.

 

“I’ll see you when you get back,” Charles says. He lets go. He lets go.

 

Erik nods, big grin, says, “I’ll see you when I get back.”

 

Charles watches him go. He watches him get on the train, sees him through the window, stood at the door. He sticks his head out and waves. The train pulls away. He keeps waving. Charles waves back.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, MON 22 JAN]

 _He has gone_.

 

 

 

 

 

He feels heavy with it, doesn’t think he’s cried so much in years, not since he was a kid, not since his father passed.

 

The first night comes and goes. Charles wraps himself in the duvet, their duvet, presses his face into Erik’s pillow, his smell. His jaw aches, his head aches, he opens his mouth to screams that don’t make their voices heard. The bed is too big this way, by himself. His fingers push at the bruises Erik left him, and he tells himself, over, over, this will pass. Get through this and the world is yours.

 

 

 

 

 

He goes to work as normal, tries to keep himself busy, too much spare time, no one at home to waste it away with. But nothing is happening. The Soviets are still in Finland. The war is slow. They call it the drôle de guerre, the funny war, the strange war.

 

Daladier gives a radio address, finds a back bone, finally, and Charles listens to it from his desk, hears him say: _For us, there is more to do than merely win the war. We shall win it, but we must also win a victory far greater than that of arms. In this world of masters and slaves, which those madmen who rule at Berlin are seeking to forge, we must also save liberty and human dignity._

 

He goes back to cleaning the bar, staying downstairs late instead of waking early. Ruth tells him he doesn’t have to, doesn’t need to, but he wants to. He hates going to sleep now because he knows he’ll cry, sleep beside one of Erik’s shirts, his jumpers; hold it close as if it were a teddy bear, he a child. He feels pathetic with it, keeps telling himself to stop, man up, it’s not that bad. It doesn’t work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. February 1940._



Hank lets him change the reels a few times. It keeps his mind focused.

 

“You just have to watch out for these two little marks,” Hank tells him. They watch the screen, see the flash of two dots at the top, like someone’s burnt the nitrate film with cigarettes. “That’s when you switch. It’s not too difficult— you should get the hang of it pretty easy.”

 

He still writes his articles, chats with the women at work about nothing, anything. Sara tells him about the cats she’s taken into her apartment, single male neighbours gone, no one to leave their pets with. She has five.

 

He’s no longer Erik’s junior. With Erik gone, Charles takes his place.

 

Five months. It almost feels exactly the same as it had before, only difference is less men, ration cards. No Erik. Everyone is relieved, but no one talks about it, too scared to curse it. Nothing can stay calm for long. Not after the last war, not after all that has already happened, all that has been said, done. Something is coming. It has to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. March 1940._



He’s been waiting for a letter everyday, all but running down the stairs each morning, checking the floor at the door of the saloon, cutting his fingers flicking through the pile of post at the office.

 

When it finally comes, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s anxious, excited, he sits at the empty bar and fiddles with the seal, runs his finger over his name, address.

 

_My dearest Charles,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. This past month or so has been long, I am sorry for not writing sooner, only I have had little time to sit still. Though in my head I have written many letters to you._

_We have passed through Austria, met others along the way, there are many of us. It was true, those months ago— Jews have been taken away on trains. We are currently near the Czech-Polish border. I write to you from the home of a family without a father, and it will be them I entrust this letter to. I hope they send it. I hope it gets to you._

_Each night I feel my need to be with you growing. I wish to hold you in my arms. I miss you, I miss your body, your mouth, the soft curves of your hips, your thighs. I long for you, Charles, when I am alone, when my mind wanders. When it is cold and when I am tired, I think of you, and I keep on. There are so many things I have to do. Before I met you I would not have given a damn whether I lived or died. But I have you, now, to come home to._

_I am unsure of when you will hear from me next. What awaits us in Poland is nothing peaceful. At night my arms ache from holding a gun the weight of a fat baby._

_I love you. I cannot wait for this to be over, for the fight to be won. This will end, I promise, and I will see you then. Stay safe._

_My love, always,_

_Erik._

 

Charles rubs at his eye, heel of his palm, drags it down his face. He sniffs, smiles. God, how he wishes Erik was here, beside him. He misses his voice.

 

He folds the letter back in its envelope. Upstairs he will tuck it safe into the back pages of his journal.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s unsure of how Raven is able to walk. She’s due in only weeks, looks like she’s swallowed a cannonball.

 

“How are you holding up?” she asks.

 

They sit on a bench near the Tour Saint-Jacques, almost-spring breeze brushing up new leaves, petals. His sketchbook sits open in his lap, blank page; he’s not in the mood. Everything he does recently is bad— isn’t right. Nothing goes how he wants it. Most times he goes back to the sketchbooks filled with images of Erik. The other night he leafed through all his books until he found it, the wolf, Erik’s signature.

 

He shrugs. “Alright, I suppose,” he says. He is. He’s stopped crying before he sleeps, most nights; exhausted. Sometimes he feels disgusted with himself for feeling how he does, when everyone else lives like this, when even his mother lived like this, raised him like this, the years his father was away. “Anyways, I should be asking you that,” he says. He smiles, nods to her belly. “You look about fit to burst.”

 

Raven huffs. She sets a hand on her bump, pets it as though it were a dog, says, “Can’t wait to get this thing out of me. Every time I stand up I almost fall over— I’ve almost crushed Hank about ten times when I’ve rolled over in the night.”

 

Charles laughs. He shakes his head. “Poor Hank,” he says. “How’s he feeling about being a father?”

 

“God,” Raven says. She tips her head back, says, “He’s obsessed. Part of it is nerves, I think, but he’s already set up the entire nursery room. Built the crib, the drawers, painted the walls. Pale yellow, you know, like those narcissus flowers. Made one of those mobiles, too. With planes.”

 

Charles smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

He takes her back to the cinema. They take the Métro to save her feet, sit close, laugh about that time over a year ago, ten glasses of alcohol each. Charles being sick.

 

She turns to him before they part; grabs a handful of his sleeve. He looks down, her fingers curved into the wool of his jacket. He looks up.

 

“You know you can always come here,” she says. “You know where we live, too. Doesn’t matter what time it is. Doesn’t even matter if I’m giving damn birth— you’re welcome here. Any time. All the time. Okay?”

 

Oh, God. Her face is so kind, her voice softer, she’s got a little smile pulling at one side of her mouth. Charles tries to match it.

 

He nods. “I know,” he says. He swallows, keeps nodding his head, looks at his feet a moment, says, “I know, Raven. Thank you, I—”

 

She pulls him into a hug. It’s awkward; her belly keeps him from her, but her arms around his shoulders drag him to her. He brings his arms around her waist, best she can, and he tells himself to stop it. Keep it together. There are thousands of people who have lost their lovers to war— what about all the women in this city, husbands gone, sons gone— what makes him any different? They all carry on.

 

Raven drops back. Charles smiles at her, watery. She cups his cheeks in her hands.

 

“You come here when you need to,” she says. “When you’re upset, when you’re hungry— when you’re drunk out of your damn skull. Come here,” she says. “Promise me.”

 

He nods. He feels almost embarrassed, here he is, almost twenty-six, about to cry as though he was nothing but a child.

 

“I promise,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

Daladier has resigned. He stands down from the position of Prime Minister, says it’s down to his failure to come to Finland’s aid, and he is replaced. Paul Reynaud becomes the new French Prime Minister. A week later Britain and France make a formal agreement— neither of them will seek any form of separate peace with Germany.

 

Charles writes about it. The attitude towards the war here is fuelled by German propaganda— some believe Britain has all but forced France into it, all this mess. That when worst comes to worst, Britain will abandon France to the wolves.

 

The office receives letters from French soldiers. All they’re doing is waiting. They drink and they sleep and they play cards. They don’t care. It’s bad. What good is an army that doesn’t care to fight?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. April 1940._



He’s woken at four o’clock in the morning. There’s hammering against his door, in his head; his mouth is dry.

 

Today is Erik’s birthday. The thought of it had Charles turning to the bar last night, finished cleaning, unlocking the cabinet and pulling out the vodka, tonic water. He’s slept in one of Erik’s jumpers.

 

He swears to himself. Someone keeps knocking, sounds like they’re about to put their fist through it, and Charles stumbles out of the bedsheets; knows it’s Gabrielle. Ruth doesn’t knock like that.

 

He unlocks the chain; pulls the door open. “For Christ’s sake— what?”

 

Gabrielle stands there, dressed in a hurry, silk blouse half untucked, hair falling from where it’s tied loose at the back of her head. She looks him up and down. She rolls her eyes.

 

“Get dressed,” she says. “I’ll wait here.”

 

Charles frowns. He’s still half-drunk. “What?”

 

She shoves at his shoulder, pushes him down the hall— he almost trips, walking backwards.

 

“What— Gabrielle—”

 

She shushes him, more of a hiss; pushes him towards his bedroom. “Shut up and get dressed,” she says. “Raven is in labour.”

 

Charles stops. He looks at her. “What?”

 

She grunts, says, “Yes. So hurry.”

 

 

 

 

 

It had to be today. Had to be. It’s like a joke made in bad taste.

 

He’d fumbled his way into his trousers, socks, shoes; looked at himself in the mirror, should he take off the jumper, should he not. He left it on.

 

There’s no Métro, not at this time, and Gabrielle had told him to take the bicycle they keep in the kitchen. She’d brought her own. He almost falls off about fifteen times before they finally make it to Raven and Hank’s building.

 

He’s out of breath; half-convinced this is some late April Fool’s joke, to get him out, cheer him up.

 

They’re greeted at the door by Ruth; she hurries them in, grin on her face. Her eyes linger on the jumper. She knows whose it is.

 

There’s a strange smell. Almost like hospitals, something feral, earthy, like the time the groundskeeper’s foxhound had pups in the old shed.

 

The midwife fusses over them— she’s older, fifties, speaks too fast. She says not to crowd them for too long. Them. Charles’ ears jump at the sound of a cry.

 

They stand in the doorframe of the bedroom. Charles sees Hank, stood at the bedside, no glasses; hand brushing hair back from Raven’s face, sweat-wet. She’s pink-cheeked, looking down, shiny skin. She’s holding a bundle in her arms, baby, blanket. Charles feels his throat twist— he almost sobs, there and then.

 

“Can we come in?” Ruth asks. The midwife titters down the hall.

 

Raven looks up. Her eyes meet Charles’, she grins, he smiles. She nods.

 

The girls go to her left; Charles goes beside Hank, shakes his hand, can’t help a laugh. Hank laughs, too, soft. He looks almost as worn out as Raven.

 

The baby is quiet. It’s a boy, Raven tells Gabrielle. His head pokes out from the top of the blanket, dark hair already thick, almost black; big eyes.

 

“You wanna hold him?” Raven asks. Charles looks at her. She smirks. “He doesn’t bite. Not yet.”

 

Charles nods. He’s never held a baby before. There were never any in Oxford, in London, everyone too busy, going to Spain.

 

The baby kicks his legs as Raven hands him over, pink marshmallow feet fumbling out of the blanket. He doesn’t weigh very much.

 

“Does he have a name yet?” Charles asks. He looks down, baby cradled in his arms, to his chest; Erik’s jumper. Oh, how Erik would miss this. Despite everything— the doubt, the confusion— he would love this. Seeing Raven and Hank’s baby. Big blue eyes blink up at him. Charles smiles.

 

Raven hums. “We were thinking Kurt,” she says.

 

Charles rocks back and forth, gentle; baby reaching up with small hands, fat fingers.

 

“Had to be born today, hm?” he says. “Just wait until the man who shares your birthday finds out.”

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, TUES 2 APR]

_Ha! Raven and Hank’s baby has been born. A boy. Kurt, possibly. And today, of all days. I wish I had an address I could write to, to tell Erik how he now shares his birthday, to tell Erik I miss him, I love him, cannot wait to hold him. Each time I see his perfume left on the bedside drawers it makes me feel lost— homesick, even, despite being home. But he is my home._

_God, I miss him._

 

 

 

 

 

He misses Passover this year. He doesn’t want to intrude— he shouldn’t be there, not without Erik. Instead he spends his time at Raven and Hank’s, helps out where he can; Hank busy with the cinema. It’s not as popular as it used to be. People still go. Escapism has its draws.

 

It seems as thought Kurt gets bigger each day Charles sees him. He doesn’t cry as much as Charles had been expecting. He’s so small.

 

 

 

 

 

The war is growing in Scandinavia. The Germans have taken Oslo; British and French troops land in Norway to push them back. Denmark has surrendered. Every new article fills Charles further with nerves. What happens after Scandinavia? Who is next? And how long before it is France?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. May 1940._



It is happening.

 

German troops have marched into Luxembourg, occupied it; brought the fight to Belgium, the Netherlands, France. They have ignored the Maginot Line and have instead come through the Ardennes— through the forest.

 

Any information that comes out is confused. It has Charles anxious, he doesn’t know what’s going on, doesn’t understand— he can’t write about it. He stares at his typewriter, has had to leave the office, go outside, walk until he’s lost his breath. A constant feeling of dread washes through him. He wishes Erik were here.

 

 

 

 

 

The air is filled with fear, once again. The Netherlands has surrendered. News has come through that the Germans have crossed the Meuse.

 

Still, people come to the saloon. They drink and drink, play poker; wives of soldiers gather and down bottles of wine, champagne, even, dance with loose limbs in the spaces between tables, in the warm spring evenings just outside the door. Charles lets himself be pulled into them, lets himself smile with them.

 

He receives his second letter. He almost tears it ripping into the envelope, nervous, desperate for it, for the comfort that is Erik.

 

_Charles,_

_It is not good. I have met people here who tell me their husbands have been taken, slaughtered, never to be heard from again. We are near Kraków. People tell me tens of thousands of Jews have been expelled from the city— they do not know where to— some place east. The brutality here has everyone scared to leave their homes. I have seen children who are nothing more than skin and bone._

_We are trying to get people out, but we can only forge so many papers, we can only spare so many men to take trucks over borders. There are almost fifty of us, now— we meet more every week. No one here wants to help the Germans. They and the Soviets have crushed the whole country, humiliated it._

_I must admit, living like this is strange. It is almost like being a child on a camping expedition. I have not taken a shit in the woods since I was ten years old. Sometimes people let us stay in their homes. Often they let us sleep in barns, bring us soup, weak coffee._

_I’d like to bet that Raven has had her baby by now. I hope they are well. Despite myself I am excited at the thought of meeting them— the baby. They will be raised in a world at peace, even if I have to see to it by myself._

_I cannot pretend I have not heard things are heading westwards. Please, stay safe. Look after friends. Protect those who need it. Do what you must._

_And, oh, my chest still aches with missing you. My body craves your touch. I long to kiss you, I could write for days of the things I want to do to you, of all the things I miss— your voice, your smile, your laugh. I miss your drunken stories. I miss when you burnt bread, when you dropped all those eggs. I miss every and all things about you. Little things remind me of you— I search them out, they make me smile. I want you. Being apart so long is so much harder than I ever imagined._

_I must stop, before this letter never ends. I have attached an account written by one of the women I have met. I have translated it for you. Publish it, please. I only wish I could sketch like you, to show you everyone, everything. I wish I had a camera. Maybe it is best I don’t._

_I send you my love, my hope, always,_

_Erik._

 

Charles reads it over and over. Relishes in it, even the bad; speaks it in his head in Erik’s voice. He still remembers— can make his head say anything he wants and almost pretend it is Erik saying it.

 

He writes like a romantic. In pen he says things Charles doesn’t think he would in person. He’ll say _I love you_ all the time, but words like this are more for poets, are they not? They make Charles smile; make him warm. He’ll read them over and over when he’s sad, lonely, scared. He keeps both letters in his journal. On top of the bedside drawers.

 

 

 

 

 

Germans encircle Amiens. They surround Arras, reach Noyelles-sur-Mer, right on the coast. The Channel. Two hours north-east of Le Havre. They’ve taken Antwerp and now they’ve taken Abbeville. France is losing. The Allies are losing. They’re being chased towards the water, and they’re losing.

 

The only good news that reaches Charles is that Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts have been arrested, back in London; detained. It makes him grin when he reads it. He sits at his desk and he laughs, almost hysteric with it.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting drunk is the easiest way. Always has been. Always will be.

 

He’s sat on the floor, on the rug at the side of his bed, back against the mattress. He’s not sure what time it is. Middle of the night. The lamp on his desk is the only light, dull orange, curtains and blinds pulled shut. He can’t even look at the moon because of blackout rules— can’t even sit and look at the stars in case his bedroom light is the one seen by airplanes.

 

He’s known this was coming. France wouldn’t be left. It was just a matter of time, of waiting, and here it is.

 

Erik was right. He’ll always be right. The French Army is failing; it’s been only weeks and there they are, now, British with them, tails between their legs on a stretch of beach at the Channel.

 

Charles holds the neck of the bottle in his fist, knocks it back, his mouth sloppy; spills some down his chin, low _pop_ as he lets the glass go. The scratch of it down his throat isn’t as bad now he’s already drunk.

 

Will Paris fall? Already it is flooded with refugees from battle zones, will they have to flee once more, Charles with them? Will France be brutalised as Poland has been— will people be living in fears as they are in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia— the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia? And what about the Jews? How many thousands live here? What about those Erik brought back; those still at the B&B?

 

Charles’ fingers go to the pendant between his collarbones. It’s small, barely bigger than a thumbnail. He plays with its points. He wants to weep. Where does this go from here?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, France. June 1940._



The noise of airplanes won’t leave his ears. The whirring of engines— the whistling of bombs falling. The boom.

 

They don’t fall near the saloon, the office, the B&B, but they still fall. Numbers coming out say that around two hundred and fifty are killed. Most of them civilians. The bomb shelters dug and built last year save some.

 

He has panic attacks when he’s alone. His flat could be blown to bits, and Erik could live, only to come home to nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

Kitty and her mother are leaving the city. Grandparents, too.

 

They’re not alone. It’s an exodus. People are fleeing their homes. The countryside is safer, emptier; the Germans won’t waste bombs on fields and crops.

 

Kitty comes by the office to say her goodbyes. She comes to Charles and hugs him, face against his chest, and he almost cries, bites it back. He can’t.

 

“It’s going to be fine,” he says. She’s just a teenager. She should be playing in the streets with friends, excited for the summer, she should be safe. “You’ll be allowed to come back soon— when all this is over. Are you taking your books?”

 

She nods her head. “I want to stay,” she says. “I want to fight— this is my city. I don’t want what has happened to the others to happen to us.”

 

Charles looks at her. Oh, she wants so much to be like Erik. Jaw clenched, harsh eyes. He smiles.

 

“I know you do,” he says. “But you can’t.” He doesn’t say: because there’s no use. Most of him thinks it’s true, what are they to do? But he doesn’t say it. “Staying alive is more important than fighting right now.”

 

It’s not. Not for Erik. Not for him, either. Maybe. Probably.

 

 

 

 

 

The next to leave are Raven and Hank— baby Kurt. The cinema is closed. It won’t open again any time soon.

 

Charles can barely believe it. At first he doesn’t understand. Raven once said that they would never leave, that Hitler and his puppet men couldn’t keep her from this city, that nothing could chase her out of her home. But that was before. Now the two of them have a baby to look after, to protect; a two-month old who has no idea of the world around him.

 

They have one last night before they go, Charles and Raven; drinks at the empty saloon.

 

She didn’t want to leave, she says, not at first. Fought Hank tooth and nail over it. This is her home. This is where she wanted to raise her child, where she works, where those she loves are, all here. It would be different without Kurt. But she can’t put her child at risk because of her own stubborn wants. No matter how much her heart aches with the thoughts of goodbyes.

 

“God, I’m gonna miss you,” she says. She wraps her arms around him, holds tight enough to suffocate; he does the same in turn. He presses his face to her hair, breathes. She’s the closest thing to a sister he’s ever had, ever will have. And now she’s leaving. Will anyone be left?

 

“I’m going to miss you, too,” he says. “You have no idea how much.”

 

“We’ll come back,” she says. “When it’s safe. When it’s calmed down. I promise. I’m not letting go of this place so easy.”

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, SAT 15 JUNE]

_I fear this is it. There are German soldiers marching down the Champs-Élysées. They are like ants, grey uniforms, black hats, jackboots. The city has been declared open— fit for the taking, no resistance._

_Kitty and her family have gone. Raven and Hank, too, baby Kurt. Even the government has fled by now— hundreds, maybe thousands of civilians with them. Trains at the station had no destination, only: not here._

_What happens now? I cannot help but fear the worst. God, how I wish Erik were here. I wish I could ask him what I must do. I miss him with every part of me and I cannot even tell him. I do not like living like this._

 

 

 

 

 

It’s over. France has fallen. The armistices are signed, Franco-German, Franco-Italian; the surrender is official. It hasn’t even been two months. Six weeks.

 

A lot of people are relieved. It means no more fighting— France will be spared the carnage seen in the Great War. But Charles is terrified. He feels like he can’t breathe, doesn’t leave his flat for four days, gets through two and a half litres of vodka, two Forster novels. He hides. Three years ago he never imagined this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. July 1940._



Not much changes. Not yet, at least.

 

Germans have confiscated hotels, luxurious homes— taken them for themselves, their offices; the Gestapo, the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe. Flags hang from buildings. Streets are empty. Charles walks around the city, his city, city full of immigrants, Jews, homosexuals, and it makes him ill. The red is too much, too bright, you can’t get away from it. Swastikas sit ugly in their centres. They are the symbol of everything evil. And they stare him in the face.

 

He thinks, well, at least Erik isn’t here to see this.

 

 

 

 

 

“You can’t close,” Charles says. He follows Emma as she walks around the office, big thick folders in her arms. She doesn’t say anything. “You can’t, not now, not when— not when we need it most. Emma.”

 

They can’t just let this happen. He can’t— he has to do something, for Erik, for everyone. He can’t lose his work, not after everything else, after everyone else. A French General, General Charles de Gaulle, he talks on the BBC from London— tells the people of France to resist.

 

“Emma,” he says.

 

She turns to him. “Listen,” she says. “You think Nazis are going to sit by and let people like us keep printing?” There’s a snarl in her voice— pointed, she says, “I give it weeks— days before they come for us. You want to be taken away by Gestapo men? Fine. Be my guest. But I’m not letting everyone else here get carted away for being socialists. Communists.”

 

Charles looks at her. His words fall back down his throat.

 

“My advice?” she says. “Keep quiet. Be patient.”

 

 

 

 

 

The French government has become the Vichy government. Reynaud is long gone. Philippe Pétain took his place, last month, after the armistice, signed the armistice; an eighty-four year-old who already looks half-dead.

 

A lot of people are calm. There’s no more mass hysteria, no panic. They have hope Pétain knows what he’s doing, that this is all part of a secret plan, that this has to happen for the Allies to prevail. One step forward, two steps back, no?

 

Charles isn’t calm. Ruth and Gabrielle aren’t calm. They know what Germans do to people like them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. August 1940._



There’s a letter waiting for him at the front door of the saloon. The envelope is battered, stained with mud, rain. It’s a wonder it’s gotten through.

 

Charles opens it; paper soft, it tears along the top.

 

_Charles,_

_I cannot spare much time to write. I am sorry. I hear what has happened. If I had any thought it would be this way I would have told you to prepare, or to perhaps get out, back to London. Be safe but not cowardly. Do what you can. I know you will make me proud._

_I have enclosed something for you. I meant to give it to you before I left, as I did my mother’s necklace, but something stopped me— I am unsure of what. But I give it to you now. I hope it finds you. I have faith it will._

_Please, wear it. Look at it and remember that one day I will return, and we will live as married couples do._

_I love you with everything I have._

_Erik._

Charles wipes at his face with his shirtsleeves. He tilts the envelope; out comes a ring. Gold wedding band. It fits. He laughs. He can’t help it. It’s all he can do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. September 1940._



They have started bombing London. Buildings are destroyed, civilians killed. Charles misses his friends there. He has hopes they’re alive. Perhaps it was for the best he did not return home.

 

 

 

 

 

Whole sections of the city have been closed off. Pedestrians can no longer walk down certain streets.

 

“The signs are up,” Ruth says. The saloon is empty most days. It’s bleak, sad; she plays the piano for no one but the three of them. “Yellow. Stuck in the windows of Jewish-owned shops; businesses.”

 

Charles has seen them. The Pletzl is full of them, **ENTERPRISE JUIVE** in fat black letters. Without their forged papers, the girls would have one, front of the saloon, but they are Christians. It protects them, as Erik knew it would. Police are already going round, collecting names— a census of the Jewish population.

 

“Fucking bastards,” Gabrielle says. “Every time I see one of them I want to slit their throats. Parasites.”

 

Wehrmacht soldiers gather on the streets, eat in the cafés, drink in the bars. They have come out of nowhere to infest the city. It breeds resentment— they are everywhere; grey uniforms, mice, ants. Charles avoids them as much as possible. His eyes catch on their guns. A policy was announced a few weeks back: hostages will be imprisoned or executed if violent actions are taken against German personnel. All anyone can do is clench their fists and walk by.

 

 

 

 

 

September 24th comes and goes. Charles stays in bed, in Erik’s jumper, Erik’s perfume sprayed on his side of the mattress, his pillow. Charles’ head aches from crying, can’t stop himself. Life has been turned upside down in a matter of months. How much longer before it ends? Before it is how it was?

 

 

 

 

 

Paris is not treat as Warsaw. There is relative calm. There are no ghettos, no camps. But things are changing.

 

Rationing has become even stricter; people queue for hours with cards, silent, watched by Germans, by French police. Cars have been requisitioned by the Occupation authorities. Everyone uses bicycles. Even they must be registered. Charles’, the one he’s used since Kurt’s birth, has small yellow tags on its rear mudguard; they all do. The city has been put on Berlin time. Streetlamps are turned off, nights are dark, blind.

 

The presence of Germans is disturbing. It unsettles him. Those who fled have started to return, things settling, but Paris is not what it was. Its beauty has been dimmed, the City of Light gone dark, cloaked by a red flag. The sound of birdsong is no longer there, where Charles walks through the streets, the parks. Even the starlings have gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**PART FOUR**

**1940-1942**

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. October 1940._



He’s losing his baby fat. His cheeks are no longer round, the curves at his hips gone; starved out of him. Everyone is hungry.

 

The B&B is still open, though there are no tourists. The Austrian family fled with the sound of jackboots. Madame doesn’t know where to.

 

Charles goes, to see her, still there, as she always said she’d be, but there are Germans in her dining room.

 

“Pigs,” she says. They take their meals without charge. Her cheeks ache from false smiles. “I have half the mind to serve them dog shit.”

 

He’s never heard her swear. “Can you not refuse to serve them?”

 

She laughs. Ha. “Yes, monsieur, if I want to be taken away and stuffed in a prison cell.” She edges her way past him, shoos him out of her way, says, “They’ll be gone soon. People will not stand for this. France will not stand for this.”

 

 

 

 

 

The French police are going around the city. They’re rounding up the communists— Charles can’t stop his nerves, mind going to Sara, what if she is taken?

 

 

 

 

 

Jewish refugees are still coming in from Alsace, Lorraine, annexed by the Germans, cast out, degenerates. Jews are now forbidden to own or manage enterprises; they are excluded from serving in the army. Charles thinks about Carmen. He wonders where he is. If he’s alive.

 

German authorities publish an ordinance with their definition of who is Jewish, who is not— ‘a person belonging to the Jewish religion or having more than two Jewish grandparents’— and all Jews in the Occupied Zone must report to local police stations; report themselves as such.

 

“This doesn’t end well,” Gabrielle says. They walk along the Rue de Rosiers together, safer to go out in twos, safer for her to be with a man, and those damned signs are everywhere. Shops have been shut down. The café where he and Erik ate crêpes in 1937 has boards over the windows, over the glass in the door. “They have names. They have addresses. When do the evictions start? The communists have been roundup— when is it the turn of the Jews?”

 

Charles looks at her. She’s so much like Erik, in these ways, part of him is surprised she didn’t go with him, to Poland, to fight.

 

“What can we do?” he says. He thinks of Erik, his guns, smuggling people across borders; all the things he’s done. His letters, _protect those who need it, do what you can_. But what? What doesn’t end with a bullet in the head, useless?

 

Gabrielle turns to him. She shakes her head, face softening, barely, dim light in her eyes. She breathes, says, “I don’t know.”

 

 

 

 

 

All media is controlled by Vichy, by the Germans, censored. Places are shut down, just as Emma said they would be. Every newspaper Charles sees is splashed with propaganda, how nice it is to have Germans in Paris, how nice they are, how nice they act. But he tunes his radio to the BBC. He has the volume down low, and familiar accents tell him the Germans are losing the battle for Britain. There’s no chance they will invade the UK, not now. The RAF are proving themselves superior to the Luftwaffe. De Gaulle and his government-in-exile call for resistance where Pétain calls for collaboration. There is hope, somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. November 1940._



It’s the kids who start is. Teenagers, adolescents; rebels with a cause.

 

Charles sees the graffiti— the Vs, the Crosses of Lorraine— watches them ride past soldiers on their bicycles, whistle at them; tracts glued to lampposts, flyers thrown from rooftops, ‘ _papillons_ ’— _vive le France, resist, Free French, baise les Boches_.

 

Ruth finds him in his room, midday, comes running up the stairs.

 

“There’s a demonstration,” she says. “The students. They’re marching down the Champs-Élysées.”

 

There are hundreds of them— thousands, maybe. Charles can’t help his grin. He stands there, on his tiptoes, part of the crowd, looks out over people’s heads. Ruth and Gabrielle stand with him.

 

It reminds him of London. Cable Street. They walk down the avenue German jackboots have trampled everyday since June.

 

People are laying wreaths at the statue of Georges Clemenceau, the leader of the French in late 1918, when Germany signed the armistice, on this day, Ruth tells him. Headed for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, under the Arc de Triomphe.

 

He feels elated. He can’t keep the smile off his face; first time in months. Something is happening. This is it, resistance, isn’t it? Le Marseillaise is sung despite its illegality; students carry fishing poles, gaules, two each— _deux gaules_ , solidarity with de Gaulle. Oh, how he wishes Erik could see this.

 

 

 

 

 

The police are waiting. They knew of the plans to demonstrate.

 

Charles panics at the sounds of screams— Germans, police, soldiers, they charge groups of students as they near the Arc. Everyone scatters. They should have known. The mood switches in a second and, God, they should have known.

 

He grabs for Ruth, Gabrielle, pushes at them, shouts, “Go, go,” but there are too many people. It’s a stampede. He smacks into them as he tries to get out. He looks around him and the girls are gone.

 

He feels his stomach twist. His anxiety bubbles up in him, this isn’t just Blackshirts on a street in east London, razorblades, coshes.

 

He hears the pop of gunfire— doesn’t know what it is, at first, has never heard a gun in his life, but there are no fireworks. He sees shop doors opening, owners taking in kids, students. He sees blood.

 

There’s this awful sick feeling in his throat. He doesn’t know what to do, feels like a rabbit in headlights.

 

His eyes go to a group of kids running, heading up a side street, away from the crowds, and he follows. He feels it in him, fight or flight. He runs.

 

 

 

 

 

The city’s streets are a labyrinth. He doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t recognise any of it. He comes to a stop around twenty minutes later, stands in this filthy back alleyway, his legs burning, chest aching. He’s unfit, can taste bile in his mouth, feel sweat all down his back.

 

The place smells of old bins. He can’t bring himself to care. He sits down, legs pulled up close to his chest, and he breathes, catches his breath, closes his eyes. The cobbled floor is cold.

 

He feels it come out of nowhere— this mix of relief, panic; fear coiled deep in him.

 

He cries. He hugs his knees close, his face hidden against them, his shoulders shaking with it. The ugly sound of gunfire is stuck inside his head, he can’t get it out. He doesn’t know if Ruth and Gabrielle are safe, if he’s safe, if he should get up, keep running.

 

He stays where he is. He wipes snot from his nose and he stays on the floor. He wishes Erik was with him, sat on the floor in this godforsaken Parisian alleyway.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s dark by the time he lets himself move. He feels stiff. His head hurts.

 

It takes him over an hour to find his way home. He gets lost, over and over, tries to keep to alleys, empty streets. It’s so dark he feels blind; no streetlights, no headlights. Everyone’s windows are black with curtains.

 

The girls are waiting for him in the kitchen. They both swear, run over to him, hug him— even Gabrielle. He’s so relieved he almost goes limp with it.

 

“You fucking bastard,” Gabrielle says. She swats at the side of his head, not hard enough to hurt. “You fucking— where the hell have you been? All this time— we thought you’d been shot, you asshole.”

 

Charles shakes his head. “I’m so sorry,” he says. He’s so glad they’re here, that no one is hurt, they’re safe. “I just— I lost you. I didn’t know what to do. I just ran and hid, I didn’t— I didn’t know when it would be safe to come back. So I waited until it got dark.”

 

Ruth reaches out to him, smooths a hand down the lapel of his coat, curls a fist in it. The two of them look so tired.

 

“Are you staying here tonight?” he asks.

 

Ruth nods. Gabrielle says, “You’re thick as pig shit if you think we’re going outside at this time. After what just happened.”

 

 

 

 

 

They don’t know how many were killed. Kids shot at for their patriotism. Charles wishes he could write to Erik, tell him, ask, what do we do? I miss you. Please tell me what we do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. December 1940._



He doesn’t care about Christmas or Chanukah. He lights the two Hanukiahs, keeps them out of the windowsill. He hasn’t heard from Erik in months. He hopes he’s safe. He wishes he’d write more, but he knows he can’t. Most letters don’t get through these days; he’s not sure how it works. The post is censored now, too. Letters are smuggled. How mad a world when even love letters are smuggled like opiates and guns.

 

He wonders if Erik is celebrating. Sat with his comrades. He smiles at the thought.

 

 

 

 

 

They’re arresting British citizens. Charles keeps his papers close at all times. On them he is a French citizen. They’re not getting him, not this easy.

 

 

 

 

 

A letter comes, two days before New Year.

 

_Charles,_

_We are nearing Warsaw. I feel we have been on this journey for years. My body aches with it._

_Once again I cannot spare much time to write. How I wish I could. I want to write to you all the time, every week, but I cannot. I could write a novel, write for days, but I cannot. I am writing by the light of a candle that has almost died out. My hands wish to rest._

_It has been almost a year since I last saw you. It seems almost impossible. Since then I have only seen you in my thoughts, in my dreams. I see you sometimes, in the smiles of other people, in the blue eyes of children. I miss you so much it makes me sick. I worry for you now, in a fallen France. I know you will do what is right. How I wish I could see you do it, how I wish we could do it together. But now we must do our parts for different places. How noble of us, hm?_

_I must admit the holidays don’t mean much this year. I will miss lighting the candles with you. Making love on early mornings. God, how I miss it all. Imagine how it will feel when we see each other again. I fear my heart will leap out of my mouth to you. I smile thinking of wrapping you in my arms._

_Please, keep safe. Charles. My Charles. I will love you until the ends of this damned Earth._

_Erik._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. January 1941._



Emma comes to the saloon. It might as well be closed, now, no one comes in. Ruth doesn’t play the piano much anymore. There are no deliveries of alcohol. Charles misses it; has to search it out elsewhere.

 

“Take a look at this,” Emma says. She hands Charles a newsletter. _Résistance._ He looks up at her. There’s half a smirk at her face. “I think it’s time we got back in the journalism game.”

 

 

 

 

 

She thinks it’s the people at the Musée de l’homme putting it out. Word has passed from person to person.

 

She takes Charles to an apartment building, not her own— across the river, the Latin Quarter. The weather is freezing and there is so much snow. There are even Germans at the bouquinistes. It makes him sick with an anger he can do nothing with.

 

“You want to do this, right?” Emma asks. They stand outside the door of a flat. Fourth floor.

 

Charles looks at her. He doesn’t know exactly what this is. He nods. “Yes,” he says.

 

Emma nods. She knocks on the door, three times fast, two slow, two fast. Charles shoves his hands in his pockets.

 

The man who opens the door almost fills its frame. He grins at Emma. It moves the hair around his mouth, strange half-beard. He looks Charles up and down.

 

“Who’s this?” he says. He speaks English. There’s an accent. “That Xavier you mentioned?”

 

“Yes,” Emma says. She steps forward— the man moves out of the way, holds the door open with an arm. She turns back to Charles. “This is Azazel. Our token Russian.”

 

Charles nods his head. He holds out a hand, says, “Charles Xavier. Nice to meet you.”

 

Azazel claps him heavy on the back, instead, hand ignored.

 

“Come in, comrade, come in,” he says. “You’ll let the heat out.”

 

 

 

 

 

There are four others in the flat, three sat at the table, one stood by it. Charles’ stomach jumps when he sees her. Sara.

 

He goes to her— hugs her. He thought they’d have taken her away, those months ago, the communist roundup. She still has those five cats.

 

“Funny how they arrested the communists,” Azazel says. Charles sees the scar on his face, long, under his eye to the top of his mouth. “I thought they and the Nazis were thick of thieves after the Pact. That _L’humanité_ lot seem to think as much. Do they not?”

 

“They are cowards,” Sara says. “The Pact means nothing. Communists and Nazis are not good bedfellows. Do you forget all those in German camps? Do you forget Marx was a Jew?”

 

There’s a smirk on Azazel’s face. He folds his arms over his chest, leans against the kitchen cabinets.

 

“So you’re not a communist, then?” Charles asks. Azazel barks a laugh.

 

“No,” he says. “Neither would anyone else be if they’d lived in it. Unless you like hunting housecats for food.”

 

Sara frowns, says, “That is not—,” but Emma claps her hands together, stops her.

 

“This is not what we’re here for,” she says. “Christ’s sake. Shut up. Both of you.”

 

They go quiet. Emma introduces Charles to the others at the table, quick exchanges of names, smiles, hellos. Angel, African-American singer, performer. Remy, French born and bred. Un-enlisted due to bad eyesight; thick set of glasses on his face. Marie, Parisian, raised in Mississippi. Her hello drags with her accent. It’s soft; makes Charles smile.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a mimeograph hidden in the apartment, Emma says. That’ll get them five pages a copy— they’ll print a newsletter once every three weeks, maybe two, if they can get hold of the paper. Maybe more, if news calls for it. _Liberté_ , they’ll call it. Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

 

“Remy knows where to find a printing press, if we need anything more heavy duty,” Emma says. Remy grins, flash of white teeth, dips his head. He’s maybe Erik’s age. Emma picks up a stack of papers from the table. “Anyone want to volunteers to throw some _papillons_ around the streets?”

 

 

 

 

 

His jaw hurts from laughing. He feels like a kid, stood at the tops of buildings, throwing leaflets and leaving, running; dropping them on Métro carriage floors, riding past people on his bike, legs aching from going too fast. Little white papers, RÉSISTE AUX BOCHES, crude little drawing of a backside with legs, face, moustache like Adolf Hitler himself.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, MON 20 JAN]

_Oh, how I feel. I have nothing to say but I must write, something— no one is here with me and I wish to speak._

_This is something. I am doing something, finally— look at me, Erik! See I am trying! I have not smiled so long since you left. I want nothing more than to crawl into bed beside you and hold on for dear life. Sod the war. Why did it have to be now, when we were only just starting?_

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a year. It seems impossible, unbelievable, as though only weeks have passed; everything he’s come to know washed away in the space of a month or two. But it is January 22nd, 1941. The calendar tells him so.

 

The flat is so cold, now, middle of winter, he sleeps in jumpers, Erik’s, socks tucked into the ends of pyjama bottoms. Coal is too precious to waste on civilian fireplaces.

 

Charles looks at the ceiling. He’s spent the day by himself. He’s looked at the photographs Erik left him, from when he was young, at home, at university; with that old cat. There are only two photographs of the both of them together, one in Marseille, the beach, from Hank’s camera, shirtless, grinning, squinting into the sun. The other is from Passover, 1938, taken by another member of the synagogue; Charles and Erik in their black yarmulkes.

 

Both are framed, Marseille by the bed, Passover on the desk. He looks at Marseille, fat tears and their tracks down the side of his face, to the pillow.

 

Not much news of the war gets through. Sometimes he is scared to listen to the radio, the BBC, in case it is overheard; the city is so damned quiet now.

 

When he does listen, it tells him British and Australian troops are winning against the Italians in Libya. In Kenya, in Somaliland. Everything here is published through a pro-German eye. Charles hopes it is lies, fantasies. He hopes the BBC is right. He hopes there is an end soon. He hopes there’s hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. February 1941._



Raven and Hank’s cinema has been requisitioned. Charles walks down the Boulevard du Temple, sees it, the sign on the window of the door, **ARYAN MANAGER**. A new Nazi film is out, played at all cinemas across the city, _Le Juif Süss_. Its poster is pasted large at the front of the building, ugly.

 

 

 

 

 

The first copy of _Liberté_ is printed.

 

There’s not much information in it; they have little access to news from outside of the Occupied Zone, only what comes through the English Radio, the Swiss radio, of the war in North Africa. But it has ways to resist. Remy had kept hold of a leaflet, from July, last year, _Tips for the Occupied_. They preach its lessons.

 

There are the easy ways, the every day ways: ignore the German presence, give them wrong directions when they ask, refuse the anti-Semitism that is crawling up through the city. When they speak to you in German, act confused, be on your way. Paint graffiti on walls, Vs, Lorraine crosses. Make your own _papillons_ , if you can. Make it known that Germans are not welcome here. They are not tourists, they are conquerors.

 

Charles is excited to have a copy of it in his hands. They did this, they made this. It’s a start.

 

 

 

 

 

A few days later word is passed through, comes to Emma, spreads through the underground of the city: those at the Musée de l’homme have been arrested. Someone has given them up.

 

“What do you think will happen to them?” Charles asks.

 

Gabrielle shakes her head. She and Ruth have become part of _Liberté_ ; meetings and talks in the flat in the Latin Quarter.

 

“Northing good,” she says. Charles rubs at his face, wipes a hand down over his mouth. The reality of what they are doing has hit them, the reality of what happens when caught. “They’ll either be put in camps or shot. Nazis don’t take well to insubordinate behaviour.”

 

 

 

 

 

Another letter comes. Each one is like a splash of water to the face, a relief, _he’s alive._

_Charles,_

_We have no good news. Warsaw’s entire Jewish population has been moved to the ghetto. All of them. It is sealed off from the rest of the city— we cannot get people out. They are trapped. I feel useless. I have spoken with many who fear for their lives— who have already seen people shot in the streets like animals. Each day I am scared of what we may find. There are brutalities here that are not human._

_We have met with other resistance and guerrilla groups. Here people live in the woods— soldiers whose homes have been taken, destroyed. Someone has told me the rumours of what is happening over the border in Romania. Fascists are executing Jews in the capital, Bucharest. Where else are we to be hunted? Is there no end to it? What have we done to deserve such things, for people to sit by and watch? I am filled with so much anger. I worry when we meet I will not be the man who left. I am better now with a sniper rifle than I am a violin._

_It has been so long since I last saw you. The thought of you calms me. It is so cold out here, there is snow, white as your skin in winter. Oh, Charles, imagine how we will live, in the future, where there is no evil. Among all these men and these guns and this war I just think I cannot wait to grow old with you. Would we stay in Paris? The City of Light…or have they taken that, too? Where would you want to see— where will we go? I have so many questions that I did not ask before, stupid of me._

_I am so glad to have met you. Everything before you was anger. Driven by the gut need for revenge, for justice. Now there is more. I cannot stop my hand from writing this…for it knows what I need to say. I love you unbearably so. I am unsure whether these words will ever be spoken aloud, you know me, my mouth has no room for poetic ruminations, my mouth is for you, your kisses, your body. I miss you and my heart aches with it, something I had not known possible before. A big heavy ache in my chest. Do you feel that, too? Does it ache because that part of me is with you? So many miles away. Sometimes I feel I am decades from you, on another world, how can this one be ours?_

_I do not know what else to say. Nothing seems right— nothing is enough. How has it been over a year? Do you remember our one year, in the Bois de Vincennes? How has that amount of time been the same? Every day I wake up and think: maybe it is today. The war will end, and I can start my journey back to you. But every day so far the war has still been there. It is still here. I hope it is not as long as the last. But however long it is there will always be an end…I will always come home to you._

_Look— I told you I could write novels for you. Maybe one day yet I will._

_Know that I love you and you are with me every day. I, too, am with you._

_Erik._

It has him crying. He almost can’t bear it. He has to go back upstairs, back to his room, slam the door shut. He wants to howl.

 

 

 

 

 

He takes the information about Warsaw and Bucharest to Emma. They can print it in the next newsletter, let everyone know what’s happening, that the Germans here might smile at you, hold doors open for you, but this is what they’re doing almost a thousand miles away. This could happen here. Already Jews have been singled out, buildings raided; people taken away in the night. Will there be a Paris ghetto? A camp?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. March 1941._



They meet in cafés, sometimes. There’s warmth, there— even churches have turned off their furnaces, everyone wears layer upon layer to keep warm.

 

Still, they must be quiet. Discreet. Anyone could give them away, easy.

 

He’s waiting in a café on the Left Bank, always the Left Bank; easy to get lost in the streets of the Latin Quarter, to lose someone else, to hide.

 

Emma had told him to expect people at eleven o’clock. It’s five past.

 

He holds his cup of coffee in his hands, close to his face, cold cheeks, and he almost drops it, bell above the door ringing, telling him: look, someone is here.

 

Raven. She’s here, in a café, in Paris; Hank with her, baby Kurt in his arms. Almost one.

 

Charles almost falls over his own feet, the chair legs, the table— almost feels as though he’s seen a ghost, ghosts. But they’re here. They’re back. Just as she promised they would be, those months ago.

 

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” He wraps his arms around Raven, face to her hair, hands tight in the back of her coat. She smells the same.

 

She laughs. “Emma told us we’d find you here,” she says. The sound of her voice makes him want to weep, to sing. “God, you’re thin,” she says. “Chocolate rations not so good?”

 

She goes to pull back, out of the hug, but he doesn’t let go. He can’t.

 

“Hey,” she says. “C’mon. Before everyone starts staring.”

 

Charles breathes. He drops his arms; holds the hands she offers him. His eyes are wet, his laugh breathless, stupid smile on his face, gormless.

 

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he says. “At least not until after this damned war.”

 

Raven smiles. “Told you we’d be back,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

They fled south, back in June. Were in the Unoccupied Zone, down closer to the sea, the Mediterranean.

 

“The cinema has been taken,” Charles says. He holds his hand out to Kurt; Kurt smiles, big baby eyes, reaches for Charles’ spread fingers. “Some collaborationist has it,” he says. “Have you seen?”

 

Raven nods. “We walked by earlier this morning,” she says. Hank covers Kurt’s ears, knows what’s coming. “Fucking fascist bastards. You see the films they’re showing? I’d bet money they burnt all our reels.”

 

Charles hums. The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights. He smiles to himself. Raven catches it.

 

She asks, “Have you heard from Erik recently?”

 

Charles nods his head. He sips at his drink, bitter, no sugar, cheap coffee; rubs under his nose.

 

“I had a letter last month,” he says. God, how he longs for another. He wishes for the times they were together every day, spoke every day, how he took it for granted. “He’s fine,” he says. “He’s alive. It’s what matters.”

 

 

 

 

 

“How have you been?” Raven asks, when they are alone. Hank has excused himself to wander the bouquinistes; he has missed them. Kurt is left in the café, safer. How Hank will be disappointed to see the Germans at his favourite stalls.

 

Charles rubs a hand over his mouth. Tugs at an earlobe. He shrugs.

 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m managing. Some days are worse than others. I carry on as everyone else does.”

 

There are days he doesn’t want to leave the bed. He doesn’t want to leave the room, his room, where it all started.

 

Raven reaches over for his hand, sets hers on top of it.

 

“You know how much he loves you,” she says. Charles nods. He sniffs, shifts himself in his seat. He doesn’t like to speak of it out loud, not in public, not where anyone and everyone could see him cry. “You just have to wait out this stupid damn war. That’s all. Then he’ll be back and you can live as you’ve always wanted. Only in a world where you are safe.”

 

Charles breathes. He counts in his head, it calms in. “I’m not sure we will ever quite be safe,” he says. He smiles, soft. “We aren’t exactly the norm.”

 

Raven frowns. “What does that matter?” she says. “Don’t say things like that— don’t think things like that. Erik will come back. You’ll live has married couples do. Or as me and Hank do; perpetually waiting to be wed.”

 

Charles hums. He wants that, he does. He can’t wait for Erik to come back through the door; the saloon door, his bedroom door— their bedroom door. The places they will go. Perhaps America. Somewhere untouched by war.

 

“I miss him,” he says. He looks at Raven, at Kurt, fast asleep, bundled in blankets. “I missed you.”

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, THURS 13 MAR]

_Raven and Hank and baby Kurt have come back. I am so happy to have them here. It feels like a little normality has come back to Paris. Although some part of me is worried— they must have been safer in the Unoccupied Zone, no Germans, they could have even left, gotten smuggled out. Been safe back in America. But they came back here. And I’m so glad they did._

 

 

 

 

 

He gets Erik’s violin out from under the bed, one night. He holds it like he would a tiny guitar, plucks at its strings with his thumb. He laughs to himself at the awful sounds he drags out of it, bow in his right hand. He leaves it on his desk.

 

 

 

 

 

More people have joined their little group. The second copy went out, a week ago, details of Poland, Romania. Only a few weeks after the arrests at the museum.

 

“There is no need to worry,” Azazel says. _Liberté_ has been scattered around streets, passed on to trustworthy friends, old colleagues, distant relatives; shoved through letterboxes, left on Métros. “There is no one here who would denounce us. We are all comrades here,” he says. He brings an arm around Sara’s shoulders, nudges her to his side. “Are we not, comrade?”

 

People are starting to come out of the woodwork, no longer prepared to sit, do nothing, watch as fascists take their country, their continent. They are sick of Germans in their city. Being scared in their own homes— when will the next raid be? More and more _papillons_ litter roads, pavements; graffiti covers walls.

 

Students have come to them, the flat. Teenagers. They are so full of life, ready to do anything. Three of them, Lisette, Georges, Pilar— Spanish refugee, parents killed in Bilbao. Charles wonders about Kitty, how she would have loved this. God, how he hopes she’s safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. April 1941._



It’s Kurt’s first birthday. Erik’s thirty-second birthday.

 

There’s a small party, a gathering, the lot of them in Raven and Hank’s flat. It was almost empty when they came back. The door had been kicked in; kitchen ransacked for food, anything. Desperate times.

 

“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” Ruth says. She’d saved up rations to bake a cake. Charles had helped; times spent in kitchens, watching cooks make Victoria sponge.

 

Raven hums. Hank is entertaining Kurt, sat on the floor, cross-legged. He dangles his keys.

 

No one mentions Erik. It shouldn’t irritate, shouldn’t anger, but it does. It rankles. It’s his birthday, too— as if he doesn’t exist. As though he’s been forgotten. Sometimes all Charles wants to do is talk about him. The girls ask, when Charles has letters through, how is he? Where is he now? Sometimes Gabrielle will speak of him. Remember when?

 

 

 

 

 

It’s odd to feel so old. Today he is twenty-seven but instead feels fifty-seven; feels as though he’s been stuck in this city his whole life.

 

He fiddles with the band around his finger. When he takes it off there’s a dent left there, like a brand; he pokes at the groove. He puts the ring back on.

 

“Anything you want to do today?” Raven asks. “I’ve left Kurt and Hank with the others. That Marie really loves the kid— she’s a damn lifesaver. Some days he makes me want to pull my hair out.” She pulls a cigarette from the pocket of her trousers, lights it, says, “Don’t have kids, Charles. All I have to say.”

 

Charles huffs. “I don’t think I’m in any danger of getting pregnant,” he says. He shakes his head when she offers him a cigarette. He misses the ends of Erik’s. All the ones now are smuggled, black market. Raven stands by the open kitchen window.

 

She hums. “No, I suppose not. Wouldn’t put it past Erik, though.”

 

Charles can’t help a laugh— surprised out of him, a snort. Raven smirks.

 

“So, what is there to do for fun around here, these days?” she says. “Get drunk in a brothel full of Germans? Go out for dinner in a restaurant full of Germans? What a German film in a cinema full of Germans?”

 

Charles shakes his head, smiles. He’s missed her. “Brothel sounds fun,” he says. “Though, we could always charm some vodka out of Azazel. Come back to the saloon. If you’d want to.”

 

Raven grins. “Are you kidding?” she says. “I haven’t been blind-drunk in months. It’d be a dream.”

 

 

 

 

 

He can’t play cards for shit when he’s drunk. Even worse than when he’s sober. Raven can’t stop laughing, she hiccups with it, lying on her side in the booth, blonde hair splayed out on the oxblood. It’s gotten longer. Wavy. Charles reaches a hand to curl some around the end of a finger.

 

 

 

 

 

His head hurts when he wakes up. Alone. Still dressed. There’s a note on the bedside drawers.

 

_Hank came for me. Helped you upstairs. He’s taken off your shoes. See you tomorrow (if you wake up)! Love you! Thank you for the fun! Raven_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. May 1941._



It’s happening. The police are rounding up Jews— arresting them. Last month they had their bank accounts frozen and now they’re being taken away.

 

“We have to do something,” he says. He looks down out the window, past the curtains, onto the street. It’s empty.

 

“What?” Emma says. “What is there to do?”

 

Charles looks at her. What is there to do? What can they do? Any outright act of rebellion gets you nowhere but shot, shoved in a camp. What can he do, run out, find them, tell them no, they can’t do this? He looks down.

 

He turns back to the window. He feels helpless, guilty— they’ve let this happen. And what can they do?

 

 

 

 

 

Mostly Polish Jews were taken. Men, boys; teenagers to fifty year olds. Maybe four thousand. It’s hard to imagine, in his head, what four thousand people all look like.

 

“We knew this would happen,” Gabrielle says. “They have names. They have addresses. They can take whoever they want with impunity. Won’t be long before the whole fucking city is cleared of us.”

 

She and Ruth still have their forged papers. As far as any policeman or German is concerned, they’re Christian. But that’s not the point, not now. It’s so much bigger than any of them.

 

“So who’s next?” she says. She pushes Azazel out of the way of the kitchen cabinets, grabs the bottle of whisky that’s kept up there, top right. “First the Polish Jews. Who next? Russian Jews? Austrian Jews? Anyone want to bet? Maybe it’ll be the homosexuals. When did they go after them in Germany? ’35?”

 

The room is silent. Charles looks at her, feels himself tense, shout caught in the back of his throat. But he lets it go. She’s angry and she’s scared. She knocks back a glass.

 

 

 

 

 

The next copy of _Liberté_ is published. By now the name is known.

 

It tells of the raids, the arrests, the thousands taken away. And taken where?

 

They must be careful, now; they’ve caught attention, must not speak a word of their activities outside the group, not unless you trust a person with not only your own life, but the lives of them all.

 

He wonders what kind of mad place the world must have become to fear death for nothing more than publishing a newsletter. The same mad place that takes people away for a religion.

 

 

 

 

 

He visits Madame, again, one evening. There are still Germans in her dining room.

 

“I am being driven stir crazy,” she says. They share dinner in the kitchen, scraps kept safe from German stomachs. “Half my rooms are full of them. Do they pay? Ha. I do not know how much longer I can go on.”

 

Charles looks at her. She looks older, now, somehow; the lines around her eyes stronger, her forehead creased. She looks tired.

 

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “They can’t be here forever.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. June 1941._



[JOURNAL ENTRY, SUN 14 JUN]

_I cannot help but think of the maybes. The what ifs._

_What if I had stayed in England? In Oxford or in London? What if I had said yes to Spain? Would I have lived? Would I be happier to serve in this war, or more cowardly for what I may have seen? Maybe I would have been conscripted. Maybe I would have been in France, over a year ago, and maybe I would have been with those chased back to the Channel._

_How different things could be. Maybe if I did not have such a love I would not be so scared to put my life at the mercy of the fates of war. I do not like to think of that certain what if— what if I had never met Erik? I cannot imagine a life. Only a paler version. There is not one part of me that has not bettered for meeting him._

_Oh, I miss him. I fear his spirit is fading from my flat, our flat, it has been so long without him. I remember times and I can picture him by the window. Coming up the stairs. Sitting at the kitchen table with a newspaper._

_I hate this damned war. This is not how humanity is supposed to be. How many lives must be torn apart? Have we learnt nothing from the last one? The whole fucking world…_

 

 

 

 

 

He sits with Angel, lumpy settee in the living room.

 

He likes her. She’s full of energy, drama, every part the performer. She makes him smile. She draws those crude little pictures they print on _papillons_.

 

She takes his hand, fingers playing with his, warm. They move to the gold band, turning it where it is looser, lack of food, sweets. “Is she back in England?” she says. Charles looks at her. Her face is so sweet, round cheeks, bright eyes. “Your wife?” she says.

 

Charles almost laughs. He shakes his head. No one’s told her. He wonders if any of the others know, either.

 

“No,” he says. She frowns, line between her eyebrows. “No wife,” he says. He brings his hand back to himself, fiddles with the ring. He’s almost gotten used to it. Almost. But sometimes he looks at it, wants to cry, happy memories brought back to him, flooded away by reality; taken. “It’s my partner’s. He’s in Poland.”

 

Angel doesn’t say anything. There’s a widening of her eyes, realising, and she nods her head.

 

“Is he fighting? Over there?”

 

Charles nods. “Yes,” he says. His voice is soft. Oh, it’s been so long. It feels as though he is shrinking, each day that passes, crumbling in on himself. “He’s with the resistance groups there.” He keeps fingertips on the ring, holds his own hand. “He’s called Erik. He used to work with Emma, at the newspaper. Before he left; before we shut down.”

 

Angel asks more, how did they meet, how long ago, what did they do?

 

Charles feels as though he could talk about it for hours, talk about Erik for hours. And Angel is interested. She smiles at his stories, the Bois de Vincennes, the beach, the drunken nights. She asks questions, laughs with him, swaps her own stories; New Orleans, parades, singing in nightclubs to the crumpled faces of white men.

 

Charles’ cheeks ache from smiling by the end of it. He thinks he’s missed that ache. It’s a nicer kind of ache.

 

 

 

 

 

Ruth is the one to tell him. He wakes up, morning, 8AM, and she’s downstairs in the saloon kitchen, waiting— holds the newspaper up in his face.

 

THIRD REICH INVADES SOVIET UNION.

 

 

 

 

 

“Big mistake,” Remy says. He pushes his glasses up his nose, sits back in his seat, arms folded. “How many millions of men do the Soviets have to spare? The size of their army— God knows what old Adolf was thinking.”

 

Charles rubs a hand over his mouth. “So what does this mean?” he asks. “All the soldiers on the streets here will be sent east?”

 

He’s thinking of Erik. Will Poland once again be trampled to the earth? What further storm does this send his way?

 

Emma nods. “Most likely,” she says. “They can’t spare anyone now.”

 

“I just don’t understand why they’ve done it,” Remy says. “It makes no sense. You’ve got to be mad.”

 

“You think they are not already mad?” Marie says. She raises an eyebrow.

 

Remy rolls his eyes. “ _Tu es un diablotin_. Of course I think they’re mad—”

 

“Look, just— shut up,” Sara says. Everyone looks to her. The kitchen is crowded with them. “Don’t you see?” she says. “This means communists are free to pick up the fight. The Pact was holding them back— without it they are officially free to resist. The Soviet government will likely be in contact to discuss what to do next.”

 

Azazel huffs. “She is right,” he says. “This will help us.”

 

“I already know of plenty who will want a part in this,” Sara says. Her mouth twitches, almost a smirk; she looks to Azazel, says, “And I think we all know communists fight dirty.”

 

 

 

 

 

The group is becoming part of a wider network. Sara is in contact with communists throughout the city, throughout the Occupied Zone. It brings new knowledge. Opportunities. It is from this that their first act of resistance outside of printing newsletters is borne.

 

Information is passed along of a downed RAF man, a sergeant, twenty-five miles outside of Paris.

 

“Azazel and Marie will go,” Emma says. “A couple is less conspicuous. They’ll take a train tomorrow afternoon, return by tomorrow evening, sergeant in tow. From Paris he will be smuggled out of France and into Spain, where he will then be taken back to England. To continue the fight. And win it.”

 

The sergeant is being kept in a barber’s basement. Possible sprained ankle— no word of where the other men are that were in the bomber when it came down.

 

Charles is almost jealous he was not chosen to go. The thought of it excites him, smuggling a man, false papers, like a spy, like Erik; doing something more than newsletters, something that could truly help.

 

For now, he stays around the flat awhile, sits with the teenagers— four of them, now, new addition of Jean, half-Jewish, just turned eighteen. Charles teaches them all to play pontoon and warms them away from Gabrielle.

 

“She’ll fleece you of all you have,” he says. “Doesn’t matter that you’re kids. And don’t think she doesn’t know you all smoke. She’ll have all your cigarettes in under fifteen minutes.”

 

Lisette deals out the cards, her turn as dealer. She asks him stick or twist. “Can you teach us more words?” she asks.

 

Charles huffs. He looks at his hand, seven of hearts and five of clubs. “Twist,” he says. “And what words?”

 

He knows what they want. He’s been teaching them English swearwords— German swearwords, ones that Erik had taught him, things they’d snickered over. Things to shout at _Boches._

 

Lisette passes him a card. Eight of clubs. “Stick,” he says.

 

“You know what words,” she says. “English words. The bad words. Like _shit_.”

 

Georges snorts a laugh. He’s seventeen, has that mop of brown hair so much like Charles’.

 

“ _Oui_ ,” he says. “Or _fuck you. Go fuck yourself. Fuck off._ ”

 

They all speak only French. Only Pilar knows another language, her native Spanish. They learnt basic English at school, but have forgotten it for more exciting things.

 

Charles grins to himself, shakes his head. He feels like an older sibling.

 

“Alright, fine,” he says. The others have decided whether or not they want to stick or twist. He sets out his hand. “Twenty,” he says.

 

Jean groans. He has nineteen. Pilar is the winner with twenty-one, a queen and an ace.

 

“Bad words now,” Lisette says. She stacks the cards back together, holds the deck between her hands.

 

Charles nods. “Okay,” he says. He thinks. “You can shout this one at the _Huns_ if you don’t want them to know what you’re saying— unless they speak English, of course.” He grins. “ _Fuck off back to hell, Nazi bastards_.”

 

They repeat it back to him. He can’t help but laugh. Ruth overhears, comes over to clip the side of his head. Bad influence, she says.

 

 

 

 

 

The RAF man is a navigator, a Sergeant Freddie Metcalfe.

 

“They told me there was an Englishman here,” he says. He’s tall, ash-blonde hair, sharp face. Can’t be any older than Charles.

 

Azazel huffs. “He wants to speak to you, Englishman,” he says. Charles looks to him.

 

“No offence to any of yous,” Metcalfe says, “but I’d sooner trust another English than a Russian. Or a Frenchman. Or an American, for that matter. When are you lot gonna get involved in this?”

 

“I’m English,” Charles says. Metcalfe looks at him. He’s leant against the kitchen doorway, weight off his left foot. Charles stands. “Do you want to talk in private?”

 

Metcalfe nods.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s from a small village up in County Durham. A pit village, full of miners.

 

“I just need to get back,” he says. “I was the only one who got out of that plane. I need to get back— fix this fucking ankle, get back in another Wellington.”

 

Charles nods. He can’t imagine jumping out of a plane. How brave someone has to be to fly over enemy territory, how it must be to drop bombs on cities, towns, civilians, children. To be shot out of the sky.

 

“We’ll get you back,” Charles says. He’s not sure how. But Emma must know how to get him out of here— out through Spain. She says others have done it countless times before.

 

Metcalfe rubs at his forehead. “Cheers,” he says. He sinks into the settee cushions, breathes. “Never thought I’d see land again.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. July 1941._



Gabrielle goes with Sergeant Metcalfe as far as the demarcation line. From there he is taken by someone else, someone from a group in the Unoccupied Zone. It is safer to travel to Spain from there, rather than risk the Occupied exit. Metcalfe has promised to write a letter, if he can, when he makes it back to Britain.

 

Just two weeks later another letter comes through, from Erik; five months since the last. Each day that passes has Charles worrying, when is it coming? When will I know that he’s alright? A thought haunts him, still, when he opens the envelopes. The letters have been sent maybe weeks before their arrival. By now it might not be alright.

 

_Charles,_

_Can you believe it is summer yet again? I cannot help but miss our skin sticking together on hot nights. Something so irritable now seems to me one of the finer things._

_I suspect you already know of the breaking of the Pact— the invasion of the USSR. Among us we are considering whether to go east as the Wehrmacht, as the SS do, follow their path of destruction in attempts to end it. For there is little we can do here. I feel like a tiger in a cage, a bear kept collared— we do what we can but we could do so much more. My friend has suggested travelling back towards Kraków. We shall decide at some point soon. The things we have seen will not go unavenged._

_We have lost people recently, men and women. I do not know if they are dead or in camps. There are so many corpses in the woods, along roads, in ditches. On the streets in towns. Is this not the 20 th century? What future awaits us if this occurs with no consequence, as leaders sit and do nothing? I have high hopes Stalin’s brutality will be turned to the Nazis. With this misstep of Hitler’s perhaps the war will be ended with Nazism crushed beneath the boots of the communists they so hate._

_I hope things are not as grim in Paris. I hear France has it somewhat easy. Small mercies._

_I must admit I long for you. I won’t be crude— you’re no blushing bride, we both know, but some things are not for letters. It is night and I am alone, for once, in the home of a woman, her teenage son. I am in a bed for the first time in what must be months, and I am thinking of you. Do you do this? Think of me at night? It almost seems wrong, how much I miss you, worry for you, to still think like this. But I cannot deny I want you. In every way._

_Maybe this will be over soon. The Soviets bring millions of soldiers to the playing field. Imagine if all this is over before Chanukah, before Christmas?_

_I miss you and I love you. Send my thoughts to everyone there. I hope they are well._

_Erik._

 

 

 

 

 

Charles remembers the first night. Could never forget, after everything; of course it is still there. As if it could have been yesterday, last week, last month. Erik playing violin. His copy of _The Picture of Dorian Grey._

 

He thinks of Erik all the time. He does, at night, think of Erik like that; remembers the things they’ve done, times they’ve spent in bed, in the bathroom, even on the settee, in the kitchen, in the saloon bar when it has been empty, just the two of them. He misses the intimacy as much as everything else. The closeness of it, the fun of it. The openness. He misses feeling good, making Erik feel good. He presses the side of his face into his pillow, touches himself in the way he wants Erik to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. August 1941._



It’s getting worse. It was always going to get worse. Here it is.

 

The French Communist Party is outlawed, made illegal; Jewish bank accounts are seized. People are saying their vaults have been opened— their safe deposit boxes. Everything emptied. Stolen. They couldn’t get out now even if they tried.

 

And then there’s another roundup. A _rafle_. Jews, again; over four thousand, again. Arrested by French police on German orders. Most from the 11th arrondissement, so close, what if those from the Synagogue are taken? Pulled from their homes as criminals for no crime?

 

Once more they can do nothing. Maybe if they had firearms, maybe if there were more of them, maybe if they were braver. Maybe if Charles was braver.

 

 

 

 

 

Word passes through that they have been taken to a camp. Drancy. France, now, too, has camps.

 

 

 

 

 

In the middle of all this something else happens.

 

There’s a Métro station on the Right Bank, right where three arrondissements meet, Barbès-Rochechouart, and word spreads so fast from there.

 

A German serviceman has been assassinated. The first German serviceman to be assassinated in France under the Occupation, a naval adjutant. Shot. And the man who did it got away.

 

“Does this mean we can all start killing Germans now?” Jean asks. “Because I would like to try my hand at that.”

 

Gabrielle snorts a laugh. “Join the back of the line, kid.”

 

They’re excited, incensed; everyone shares a drink in the kitchen, rammed in, close together. Finally, something has happened. This is what they are thinking. That this now opens the floodgates to more acts against the Germans still crawling the city, the country, unwanted, hated.

 

Charles is excited, too; he thinks of how Erik would react to the news. Probably he would be the assassin. The thought almost makes him laugh. He smiles to himself.

 

But there’s the worry underneath it all. What happens now? How many will be taken in revenge, in punishment? See what happened after Herschel Grynszpan— what happens here? Will they now be further sought out? And the Jews that are being arrested…It is no longer an eye for an eye. You take one of their eyes and they shoot you between the both of yours.

 

“How did they even get hold of a gun?” Raven asks. “Surely the Germans outlawed firearms when they arrived?”

 

“Doesn’t matter how they got it,” Remy says. “As long as they use it to shoot _Boches_.”

 

There’s a hum of agreement. “They probably stole it from another German,” Ruth says. She’s stood beside Charles, elbows touching, skin warm in the too-hot-too-crowded room. Charles thinks about the guns smuggled and hidden by Erik and the others. Where are they?

 

“Will it start happening everywhere now?” Lisette asks.

 

Azazel sets a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s hope so, _kroshka_.”

 

 

 

 

 

A week later thirteen hostages are executed. It is what the Germans always said they’d do, right when they first arrived. _Hostages will be imprisoned or executed if violent actions are taken against German personnel._ It makes Charles queasy. But, God, the thought comes to him. How easy it was to assassinate a man in a public place, to get away with it. How it would feel to kill a German, how cathartic, how _righteous_. How after all those taken away, all those murdered, surely it would be just. How proud Erik would be. Charles thinks maybe he would kill a thousand Germans if it meant this would end. The longer the war drags on the more desperate people get; the more desperate he gets. The more he fails to recognise himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. September 1941._



It looks as though the Germans are winning against the Soviets. Charles sees the headlines, screaming out from the newspapers, hears the news, crouched down on his floor, ear to his radio, and it’s devastating.

 

 

 

 

 

An exhibition has opened in the 2nd arrondissement, at the Palais Berlitz, on the Boulevard des Italians. So close to Harry’s.

 

It’s a Nazi exhibition. _Le juif et la France._ The posters for it are posted on near every kiosk Charles walks by, the same grotesque image of _le juif_ he’s seen everywhere, painted onto the windows of shops, restaurants, cafés. It makes him feel sick, a heaviness at the back of his throat. It shouldn’t be like this.

 

 

 

 

 

Raven takes him to the side one day. She grabs him by his elbow, tugs him out of the kitchen, into the living room. She just looks at him.

 

“You look half-dead already,” she says. Charles huffs.

 

“I’m fine,” he says. He is. He’s managing. It’s been so long now it almost feels like a routine. The war has been two years, almost as long as he’d known Erik when it first started. The thought stings. Two more and it’s as long as the last one. Four damned years. “I’m just tired,” he says.

 

“We’re all tired,” Raven says. She wants to say more, he knows, but she stops herself. She says, “When was the last time you heard from him?”

 

Charles shrugs. But he knows, of course he knows; can remember the date he opened the letter, the morning, each one scribbled at the back page of his journal. “Start of July,” he says.

 

He longs for another letter. With all that’s happening with the Soviets, he needs to know. He needs to hear that Erik is still safe. Still alive.

 

Raven touches a hand to his arm, squeezes. “You want to come to ours tonight?” she asks. “There’s not much to eat, but we can manage.”

 

Charles shakes his head. “I can’t take food from the mouth of your child,” he says. He smiles, soft. He knows she’s worried about him. It has guilt pulling low at his gut, he’s fine, there’s no need for her worry, but still, she has it. “I’ll be fine,” he says. “I’ve got some bread and a bit of meat left. I just want to go to bed, if I’m honest.”

 

 

 

 

 

Four years. It feels almost impossible that it has been so long. He lies there, fingers fiddling with the points of Erik’s necklace, his star. Of the four 24th of Septembers, they’ve only been together for two. Maybe next year they will be again. God, how he hopes so. He doesn’t want Erik to have been at war longer than they were together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. October 1941._



There’s a letter waiting for him when he leaves the kitchen, into the saloon. Light spills hazy through the dark windows. He feels the tightness in him loosen; relief.

 

It coils back in his stomach as he picks it up, the envelope; it isn’t right. The hand is not Erik’s. _Charles Xavier._

_Charles Xavier,_

_Please excuse my English. I promiced Erik I would write this if anything happened._

_I am so very sorry to have to tell you this. Erik has been arrested. They do not know he is a Jew, or a German. He has been taken as a Pole. He will likely be in a camp, as a political prisoner. He was alive the last time I saw him. We were nearing Kraków._

_He spoke of you all the time. It was strange to think at first. Two men. But watching him speak of you was the same as watching a man speak of his wife. I am sorry. I have a girl back home and it is my hope she will never get a letter such as this._

_Stay calm, for he is alive. He will not go quietly. He is a fighter. We here all miss him._

_I am sorry._

_Wojciech._

 

For a while Charles cannot breathe. He feels it, his chest, too tight, ribs closing sharp like a corset.

 

It’s all he can do to stand. His eyes go over the words, over, over; his stomach turns, it’s that one word, just one, _arrested_. He wants to be sick.

 

There’s a lump heavy at the back of his throat. It hiccups its way out his mouth in a sob, a soft noise, nothing like the wailing in his head. He wants to scream— wants to tear the paper apart, burn it, it doesn’t exist. He drops it.

 

He leans himself over the bar top, hands at each temple, hair pulled into his fingers, curled up into his fists. _Erik has been arrested._ What if he’s already dead?

 

 

 

 

 

He goes back upstairs, back to his flat. He can stay here for a while. Nobody needs him right now.

 

He slams the door shut behind him, clicks the lock, latches the chain; front pressed against the wood as he breathes, hears himself whine. He bangs his forehead against it, his fists, the sides of his forearms. He screams.

 

 

 

 

 

He stays in bed. He curls himself up in it, a hand outstretched to nothing, to no one, an empty space. He digs his nails into anything, his clothes, the mattress, the skin above his elbows as he cradles himself. The world and the war can go on without him for now. He doesn’t want it.

 

 

 

 

 

“Erik has been arrested,” he says. He watches four heads turn to him. Ruth, Gabrielle. Emma and Raven.

 

Remy looks up, ink smudges on his face. “Who?”

 

Charles swallows. The letter is folded in his pocket.

 

“When?” Gabrielle says. She walks to him, stood by the settee, one hand on its back; something to lean against. Charles shrugs. He pulls the letter out.

 

“I don’t know,” he says. He hands it to her, sees it tremble with him, and he licks at his teeth, says, “I got— I got that yesterday. I don’t know when it was sent.”

 

“That’s why you didn’t come,” Raven says. Charles nods his head.

 

“Shit,” Gabrielle says. She looks at Charles, looks like her eyes could be wet, that sheen in them. Charles offers a small smile. He knows her feeling and he knows she knows.

 

“Yeah,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

The letter gets passed to Ruth, to Raven, to Emma. To Hank. Charles doesn’t want to share it with anyone else. But he tells them, in his own words.

 

“What do we do?” Raven asks.

 

“What do you mean ‘what do we do’?” Azazel asks. “There is nothing we can do. Not unless you want to go to Poland, find whatever camp it is he is in, and do some sort of magic act— vanish him out of there. Poof.”

 

Gabrielle hits him over the head. She doesn’t say anything. The look on her face is thunder; no one says anything; there is quiet, for a moment, hostile. Charles bites at his lip.

 

“He’s right,” he says. They all look to him. He shakes his head, wipes under his nose. “He’s right. There’s nothing we can do.” Because there isn’t. It hurts in his chest, it’s as though there’s a constant noise in his head, a drone, a scream. He shrugs. “Just have to wait to get another letter. And hope it’s good news.”

 

Raven’s hand finds his, they stand beside one another. She squeezes.

 

“Erik would want us to keep doing what we’re doing,” Emma says. “So we will keep doing what we’re doing. In his name and in all our names.” She looks to Charles, a question. He nods. “We keep going until we’re all in the ground.”

 

 

 

 

 

Days pass. A week. Two. There’s a constant strange ache in him, worse than before, like a fist clenched up in his ribs.

 

They publish another copy of _Liberté_ , try and collect as much information on Polish camps as they can. Angel and Marie make more _papillons_ , the kids throw them around the streets, the Métro carriages.

 

Charles asks to help; to draw one of the designs. He takes an old sketch of his, of Erik, his face, his shoulders, and he writes words over it. _Look into the eyes of a Jew who will slaughter you in his people’s name._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. November 1941._



The cold has crept in, this winter even worse than the last, three pairs of socks, thermal vests, jumpers on jumpers.

 

Charles sits at the side of his bed, sleeves pulled over his hands. He presses his ear to his radio. It tells him news of the east, of the Battle for Moscow. He hears about North Africa, the Allies crossing into Libya, Rommel and his men fighting back.

 

He wonders what Erik is doing. What it is like, trapped in such a place, surrounded by guns, the constant heavy threat of death. It is so cold here, what must it be like there? Charles misses nights where they’d hold each other, skin against skin, stay warm under the covers, eat hot soup before bed. He smiles to himself. His eyes are wet.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, TUES 18 NOV]

_I want to make him proud. I want to make what we are doing worthwhile. Newsletters and crude pictures on papillons only do so much…But what else am I to do? Must we risk everything to take the lives of Germans? Will that do more? Change more? I feel myself grow more and more desperate as each day passes, no more news, where is he? How is he?_

_I feel hopeless and I feel helpless. This is what life has given me— has given us. And for what? I want 1937 back, or 1938, I’d do anything…God, how I’d do anything to have it back._

 

 

 

 

 

Emma arrives one morning, laughing, sniggering to herself, cackling. It’s odd. Everyone looks to one another.

 

The teenagers are the first to ask. They want to join in on the joke, on the fun.

 

“What?” Georges asks. He stands from where the lot of them sit around the coffee table, game of cards abandoned, for now. “What’s so funny?”

 

Emma grins. There’s something feline about her, her eyes, the way her mouth curls.

 

“Someone left a bomb in a bookstore yesterday,” she says. “One of those ones selling German shit.” She laughs, soft, more to herself; says, “They think the person responsible left it in a copy of the Communist Manifesto.”

 

Charles can’t help himself. He’s the first to respond, a snort, _pfft_ , and they all look to him. He laughs. For the first time in a while, he just laughs. Because it’s funny. And it sets everyone else off, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. December 1941._



Two months have passed since that damned letter arrived at his door. And not one scrap of paper has arrived since.

 

 

 

 

 

When news comes through of Pearl Harbour, of an attack on an American naval base, the alcohol comes out.

 

“God, I’ve been waiting for this moment,” Azazel says. He knocks back a measure of vodka.

 

“People have died,” Emma says.

 

Azazel shrugs. “Lots of people have died before this. Does not mean we cannot celebrate.”

 

Remy hums. He clinks his glass to Azazel’s. “Truer words have never been spoken.”

 

Charles watches Emma roll her eyes. Raven elbows him in the side, baby Kurt on her lap. Over eighteen months old, now. Strange. Charles wonders how old he’ll be by the end of all this.

 

“Remember the last time we drank from measure glasses?” she asks. She’s got a smirk on her face.

 

Charles bites back his grin, shakes his head. “You know, I’d really rather not,” he says. He looks at his glass, full of vodka. “Still,” he says. “When in Rome.”

 

He knocks it back, feels the scratch down his throat. He’s almost missed it. Raven laughs.

 

The two of them sit on the floor, the lot of them all in the living room, drinking, decks of cards out for pontoon, rummy, snap. Marie, Angel, Lisette, Pilar on one settee; Hank, Azazel, Remy, Emma, the other. The rest of them sit cross-legged around the coffee table. Sara is to Charles’ right.

 

“At least your lot will finally get involved,” Gabrielle says. She lifts her glass in Emma’s direction, turns it on Marie, on Angel, on Hank, on Raven. “Here’s to the American heroes, no?”

 

Ruth flicks at her. “Shush,” she says. “Drink your drink.”

 

They all get far too drunk, even the kids, will need to restock all their alcohol bottles, come morning, and Charles lets himself enjoy himself. They all share dances to no music, sing songs, volume kept low, just in case. They tell stupid horror stories and play cards with drinks as stakes. What an oddness it is to celebrate such an event. And yet they do it. And Charles finds that he couldn’t care less.

 

It’s past midnight, hours past curfew by the time any of them decide to go to bed, and none of them are risking stumbling home in the dark. So they sleep where they land.

 

They’re woken two hours later by Kurt’s crying. Raven’s groan has Charles stifling a laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

In the next few days the United States declares war on Japan. They come into the war, two years late.

 

 

 

 

 

They’re working on the next copy of _Liberté_ , all wanting to spread the news as much as they can, the cheer, the feeling of _maybe this is it_. The Soviets, now the Americans. Surely this many men can crush Hitler and his puppets.

 

But then it happens, again. It feels almost like a punishment. They were all so happy, so lulled. And now this.

 

Over seven-hundred Jews are arrested. Here, in Paris, again. More of them taken away.

 

It’s exhausting. The knowledge that no matter what they do, it doesn’t mean anything. Not against something this big.

 

And every now and then, Charles finds his mind wandering back to that assassination.

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re spending the day with us whether you like it or not,” Raven had said; handed him a coffee in the cold kitchen.

 

Chanukah has come and gone, much the same as last year, candles kept out of windowsills. Christmas now is here.

 

There’s not much to celebrate, but it’s easier, with Kurt there, excited, his second Christmas. Charles sits with him on the carpet; entertains him with the few presents they could scrape together, bear, ball, bar of chocolate. He holds the bears arms and makes it dance. Kurt laughs, reaching for it. Charles grins.

 

“He’ll be thinking about this,” Raven says. Charles turns to her, sat on the settee. “Erik,” she says. “Thinking about you; about Christmas with you. Maybe even Kurt— only nameless, baby boy or girl.”

 

Charles smiles. He leans his head back against the armrest.

 

He’s happy with the low buzz of bad wine. Without it the thought of Erik would be a darker one.

 

“Maybe next year he’ll be here,” he says. He picks up his glass from the floor, takes heavy gulps. “Christmas 1942,” he says. He smiles, hums. “Has a nice sound to it.”

 

 

 

 

 

New Year’s Eve seems to be another adequate excuse for everyone to get drunk, again; all of them set up in the saloon, all of them bringing a bottle.

 

“Where are the kids?” Charles asks. None of the teenagers are here. Raven and Hank are at home with Kurt. Charles wishes they were here.

 

“With their families,” Emma says. Charles nods.

 

“Ah.”

 

“C’mon,” Angel says. She hooks her arm around Charles’, links with him. “I wanna dance. Which means you need a few drinks down you.” She drags him towards the bar. “Think we’ve got about every spirit there is.” She grins. “So what’ll it be?”

 

Charles hums. He reaches for the vodka, holds it as though he were a sommelier, nods his head. “This’ll do.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. January 1942._



Funny, how time creeps up on you. How is it possible to have been two years? Two damned years? What they had seems almost decades ago, centuries, too much has happened, has passed them by, separate. Charles clings to it, what they had. He’s not letting it go; will dig his claws in as hard as he needs.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, THURS 22 JAN]

_I was with him for two years and four months. Now we have been apart two years. If I was sure there was a God I would ask him to bring Erik back to me before May. But I am not. How I hope we will not be apart longer than the time we were together._

 

 

 

 

 

He heads to the B&B, bottle of wine hidden under his coat as a late Christmas present, an apology for being away for so long, a dimmer for the bad news he will bring.

 

Only he gets there, and the door is boarded up. His heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach.

 

The windows are grimy with dust, a pane in one smashed, rock through it. There’s no sign of anyone. The flowers are long dead with the winter.

 

He feels his sadness and his anger welling up in him. He wants to smash the wine against the wall, scream, shout, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want any attention it may bring, any police, any Germans. So he leaves. He goes back home and he drinks the wine until it makes him sick. Madame Mouret is gone. God, he hopes she got out before she was taken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. February 1942._



On a Monday they shoot the members of the Musée de l’homme resistance group. The ones that inspired _Liberté._

 

“Think of this,” Sara says. “If you are to be shot for printing a newsletter, why not be shot for something else? If either way you are to end up with a dozen bullet holes in your body, is it not better to take one of them out with you? Or is it better to die for a few pieces of paper?”

 

 

 

 

 

Another letter arrives. Charles holds it careful between his fingers. The paper is creased, lines brown with dirt.

 

The hand is different, not Erik’s, not the same as the last man’s, as Wojciech’s.

 

_Charles Xavier,_

_I hope this reaches you, and I hope it reaches you well._

_My name is Tomasz. I have known Erik Lehnsherr since the end of 1940. We were arrested together in August. The things we have seen together is enough to turn the stomach of the hardest man._

_We planned an escape from the camp, he and I, ten others. As far as I know only two of us made it more than a mile from the barbed wire without being shot like dogs._

_It is sadly my duty to tell you Erik was not one of those two. My belief is that he died the fighter he lived as. I can only offer you my condolences, and the promise that he will not be forgotten, that he will be avenged as the others are._

_He told us that you work for a newspaper. I beg of you, Charles Xavier, spread the word of what I tell you. Let your grief and this knowledge fuel your anger. Help us in ways Erik no longer can._

_The camp we were taken to, I am unsure of its precise location, only that it was south-west Poland, but know this: it is closer to Hell than I have ever been and will ever care to be. There they shaved our heads, dressed us all in uniform. They shot prisoners for nothing more than a look, than a slow walk. Often for not even that._

_They worked us— crueller than mules. I witnessed people drop dead from it. And the Soviets, they gassed them, took hundreds of them, prisoners of war. Dead within minutes. It struck fear and panic in us like nothing else. We had to leave. Those of us who were not murdered would only starve, collapse, freeze come winter._

_This is not humanity…I do not know how many were in that camp. Now that there is the gas— I do not know what happens next. I do not like to think of it. They have created the ultimate factory for misery, for death. First the Soviets, then who? Us, the Jews, who they have already cornered like rats? The Poles?_

_I have no doubts that there are more of these camps. While near Warsaw we heard rumours. We also heard the stories from further east— the shootings and the death squads, tens of thousands shot dead in one day, bodies cast like rubbish into a ditch._

_I will now make it my duty to protect who I can, kill who I must, and spread this word— as you should, too. Please. I would write more but I am afraid at this moment I simply cannot. My hands shake. It is cold and I do not wish to remember. Perhaps I shall send more letters to you and your people in the future._

_Once again, I cannot express how truly sorry I am. Know that Erik was loved and respected as one of the best of us. If we ever meet, please forgive me for being the one to give you this news._

_Thank you. Please spread the word. Good luck._

_Tomasz._

Charles breathes. He can feel his mouth twisting, that hideous downturn, he puts his hand to it. The noise he makes as he inhales cracks in his throat.

 

“No,” he says. That one part of his head says it to him, over and over, doesn’t believe it; it spins and spins, won’t stop: no. No, no, no. No.

 

He drops the letter on a table, as if it were poison, as if it could burn. Tears are fat at the corners of his eyes, tumbling down over his cheeks, dripping off his chin. His voice is barely there.

 

“No.”

 

 

 

 

 

He’s not dead. It’s a mistake. This Tomasz man just didn’t see him, didn’t find him— that doesn’t mean— it doesn’t mean that he’s dead. Perhaps he ran elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

He can’t sit still. He spends hours pacing, walking up and down stairs, banging his palms against his thighs, his fists on the piano top, against his kitchen table. He stands in the bathroom and tears the shower curtain from its rail, splinters the mirror with his hands until there’s blood smudged into his broken reflection. He sits on the floor behind the bar and cries until his head aches, until his jaw aches, his stomach turning itself over until he has no choice but to be sick.

 

 

 

 

 

He lies in bed. He misses another day with the others. Perhaps they know why, can reason it out, after the last time.

 

He hugs one of Erik’s shirts to his chest. When he stood on that platform, those years ago, they did not say goodbye. He did not say goodbye. The shirt is stale with tears when he wakes in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s two people he knows he should tell before anyone else. But Charles doesn’t want to be the one to give this news, there’s still that voice telling him it’s not true, it’s not real, because you feel it, don’t you, when someone you love dies? Even when they’re miles away, you feel it, in your chest, in your gut? And he can’t feel it, he hasn’t felt it. But he still aches hollow with its possibility.

 

A policeman stops him on his way, asks what he’s doing out, it’s 8PM. The initial twist of panic is covered by a smile. His best French, Charles says, “Just on my way to visit my girlfriend, sir. Thank you. Have a nice evening.”

 

Gabrielle answers the door. Her hair is damp from a shower. She looks at him, a frown, mouth open to say something. Charles pulls the letter from his pocket.

 

“He’s dead,” he says.

 

Gabrielle’s eyes snap to his, up from the paper. He tries to hold back his tears, he does, but he can’t; they drop, silent.

 

Ruth comes down the hall. She sees him. “Charles? What is it?”

 

He goes to answer her, to say hello, something, but he’s stopped when Gabrielle pulls him to her; pulls him tight in a hug. His breath chokes in his chest and he grabs handfuls of the back of her shirt, letter crumpling in his palm; pushes his face into her hair, cool against him. He feels like a boy clinging to his mother and he can’t stop crying.

 

Gabrielle shushes him, walks them away from the door. She kicks it shut.

 

Ruth stands, silent. Gabrielle takes a step back, holds Charles’ face in her hands, doesn’t wipe away his tears, just holds him there, to look at her. There are tears down her face, too, matching tracks that smudge black with leftover kohl. Charles’ fingers curl in the bottom of her shirt.

 

“Come into the kitchen,” she says. Her hands brush into his fringe, comb it back. He nods.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s not used to her like this. This is Gabrielle, the one who teases him, who rolls her eyes, who met him his first week in this city, told him, “You look like a little boy out of a Dickens novel. Take off that stupid cap.”

 

He doesn’t want to say it again. He doesn’t want to make it any more real than it already is, can’t force himself to spit it out, so he hands Ruth the letter, lets her read it. Her eyes linger on the cuts to his fingers, his knuckles.

 

“Here,” Gabrielle says. She sets two drinks out in front of him. One tea, one vodka.

 

Ruth has a hand to her mouth as she holds the letter. Charles takes the vodka.

 

Gabrielle sits beside him, round kitchen table. “You can stay here,” she says. Charles looks at her, nose twitching with the alcohol. She wipes at her eye with the heel of her palm. “At least for tonight.”

 

Charles shakes his head, no, “I don’t want— I’m not here to intrude,” he says. “I just—”

 

He stops. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to do. He pushes the glass away, elbows on the table; shoves his head in his hands. He breathes. “Fuck.”

 

He feels cloudy, just wants to stop. He wants to stop.

 

“You’re staying here,” Gabrielle says. Charles doesn’t look up. There’s a shift of paper as Ruth sets the letter on the table, scrape as she takes a seat. “I’m not coming to the saloon tomorrow to find you strung up from the rafters.”

 

It startles a laugh. He rubs at his eyes, harsh, sees spots.

 

“Take the spare room,” Ruth says. Her hand curls around Charles’ wrist, pulls his arm down from his face. “As long as you want it for.”

 

Gabrielle hums. “But not too long.”

 

Charles looks to her. She smiles. He smiles back.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s better, sleeping in a different bed. Away from where he slept before; Erik. Their first night, last night, most nights in between.

 

 

 

 

 

They ask if he wants to be the one to tell the others. To tell everyone at the flat, to tell Raven, Hank, Sara, Emma. He doesn’t. But he should, shouldn’t he?

 

Raven hugs him until it feels like he can’t breathe. It sets him off, he feels rubbed raw, flayed, it’s all he can think about. He’ll never see Erik again. He always knew it might be this way, end this way, but now it is, it has. And he has no choice but to face it, now, despite all the times he hid his head in the sand before.

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t feel right. He lays awake staring at the unfamiliar walls. His ears ring with the silence.

 

 

 

 

 

They have something of a funeral wake, the next day, gathered in the saloon. Half of Charles doesn’t want it. It makes it real. It feels morbid, garish. But half of him understands. He’s not going to stop the rest of them celebrating Erik’s life. He’ll just get drunk.

 

He listens to them tell their different stories, first meetings, misadventures, a time when Erik was supposed to play violin but got too drunk, black eye from Austria; times when he’d come to the office too angry to speak without shouting, when he’d almost thrown his typewriter at Krzysztof.

 

Charles smiles to himself. His face is wet. He sits on a barstool and helps himself to drink after drink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. March 1942._



The sounds of bombs return. He’s still in the spare room, Gabrielle and Ruth’s flat, and they gather on the settee, wait for it to end. Hundreds are killed.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s drinking every day. It’s worse than it’s been before. Mostly it’s to feel better. Some of it is to forget.

 

“You need to stop,” Ruth says. He’s laid in bed, already far past tipsy, waiting for sleep to come get him, bottle stood upright in a hand.

 

He hums. “No, I don’t. I feel fine.”

 

In this moment he feels fine. Tomorrow morning will be different. Gabrielle has walked in on him crying too many times, his face shoved into the pillow, hands creasing their spare sheets.

 

Gabrielle walks past Ruth in the doorway, grabs the bottle too fast for Charles to do anything about it.

 

“You don’t think we all want to do this?” she says. She shakes the whisky in his face, the slosh of it loud in the quiet. Charles frowns. “You don’t think we all wouldn’t rather get drunk, pretend nothing was happening? That nothing had happened?”

 

Charles glares at her. He doesn’t want to hear it.

 

“Pull yourself together,” she says. “We all want him back. We all want this to end. But we’re not all reaching for the bottle.”

 

 

 

 

 

He goes back to the flat. He apologises, says he’d overstayed his welcome. He doesn’t stop drinking. The smell of dust in his bedroom makes him cry; the pictures at the beside and the desktop have him weeping.

 

 

 

 

 

They start working on another copy of _Liberté_ , with the news from the letter, the camps, the gas; the factory for murder.

 

“This is madness,” Sara says. “We knew they were rounding people up, sending them east, but not— not for this. This is barbaric.”

 

Charles dwells on it, on Erik in that place, all those others, thousands, waiting to die, freezing in winters, starving, shot like sick war horses. He thinks about it when it’s quiet and when he’s alone, when he’s in bed, when he’s walking and everyone else is still so alive.

 

None of this feels like it’s enough, not with what they face each day that passes. They spread the news of this and it does what? Causes fear? Outrage? And what else? People will still die, as if they had done nothing.

 

“We have to do more,” he says. Emma looks to him. She raises an eyebrow.

 

“Great,” she says. “Any suggestions?”

 

Charles frowns. “I don’t— I don’t know.”

 

He thinks about the assassination last August, how the one who did it got away, how easy it was. He thinks of the men like Erik living in woodlands with guns and grenades.

 

“I know a group of communists that are scrounging for firearms,” Sara says. Charles looks to her.

 

“No,” Emma says. “Or have you forgotten the hundreds of hostages those bastards have shot in retaliation for one of their own?”

 

Charles rubs his hands over his face. He feels lost.

 

 

 

 

 

He tortures himself, haunts himself, alone, in his bed, their bed, while the rest of the city does its best to sleep. He can’t stop himself. He can’t stop thinking about it, Erik, how he’ll never be here again. Charles will never call his name again. He fiddles with the ring on his finger and grows angry with the future that has gone, vanished, and for what?

 

He exhausts himself with it. His chest aches, head along with it. His pillows are damp by the time he stops, face sticky with snot.

 

 

 

 

 

They hear trains are deporting French Jews from the internment camp at Drancy. Eyewitness accounts pass from person to person. The trains were heading east.

 

 

 

 

 

He walks down by the river. The water flows past, as it always has, and what is he to do? There are people being murdered and all he does is print a newsletter. You can’t kill fascists with pamphlets.

 

He’s so tired of it all, of every day being more bad news. Madame has gone, God knows where, and Erik is dead. Life will not return to what it once was, even when this all ends, if this all ends.

 

He stops and leans elbows on the balustrade. The breeze carries his hair into his eyes; he remembers all the times he and Erik walked this way, the books Erik bought him from the bouquinistes, the ones he’d make Charles read aloud, French, translate any words that had him stopping.

 

There’s the red of a Nazi flag waving at him from across the Seine. He watches it.

 

 

 

 

 

He remembers Sara’s address from a time he and Erik had visited, all that time ago. He smiles at the concierge as he passes into the building.

 

She’s surprised when she answers the door to him.

 

“Charles,” she says. “Hey. Everything is alright?”

 

“Last week you said you knew communists who were looking for firearms,” he says. “Did they find any?”

 

Sara looks at him. She ducks her head out of the doorway, checks the hallways for others. She pulls Charles in by the front of his shirt and clicks the door locked behind him.

 

“Are you serious?”

 

Charles nods. Yes. God, yes.

 

“I’ve had enough of writing newsletters, drawing crude pictures. It’s been over a year,” he says. “Have we even done anything? Truly? You said it yourself— if we are to risk getting shot for a couple of sheets of paper, why not risk getting shot for something better?”

 

All they’ve done is piss off a few Germans, spread some news, gotten some laughs out of people, but that’s it. So many have done so much more. People have joined armies, crossed borders, become partisans, picked up firearms. He wants to do something Erik would do. Something Erik would be proud of. He wants so much to hurt the people who killed him. So much of his cowardice came from not wanting to lose everything, and now— and now.

 

Sara runs a hand through her hair. She walks into her kitchen. Charles follows.

 

“Christ,” she says. “Alright. I know a few people who are making bombs— planning train derailments. Those kinds of things.”

 

“Can you get me in contact with them?”

 

She looks at him, a while, trying to figure him out, he knows.

 

“Charles, I know you are in pain, but you can’t— you can’t make it go away like this.”

 

Charles licks at his teeth. He thinks of the satisfaction that could come with detonating a bomb, derailing a train, how Erik would be looking down on him, watching, smirk on his face. He can’t think of any other way of making it go away. He wants to make Erik laugh.

 

“I want to do this,” he says. “I need to do something. You don’t have to do anything, not if— not if you don’t want to. Please,” he says. “Just put me in contact with them.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. April 1942._



He lets himself have the morning to mourn. Perhaps that’s what mornings were always for.

 

After lunch he will go across to Raven and Hank’s place, see baby Kurt, toddler, now, new words each time; give him his gift. But for now he’ll just lay in bed. There’s a bottle on the table beside him but he doesn’t reach for it.

 

He thinks about the first time, Erik’s twenty-ninth, _I don’t really care for birthdays_. His thirtieth, Le Havre, the train journey there, the beach, the sand, the naps on the way home. He’d spent two of Erik’s birthdays with him. Three without him. Now the rest of them without him.

 

 

 

 

 

Kurt seems to like his present well enough. Charles had found an old sketchbook, empty, a few coloured pencils. He smiles as he watches Kurt draw shapes.

 

“Hey,” Raven says. They stand in the kitchen, alone, everyone left in the living room, chatting, playing games. Charles holds his glass of water. She touches a hand to his elbow. “You alright?”

 

He nods. “Fine,” he says. He smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes, he knows.

 

“Gabrielle told me about your drinking,” Raven says. Charles purses his lips. He looks down at his glass. “It’s okay,” she says. “I get it. Just— please don’t go to ruins over this. You know he wouldn’t want you to.”

 

Charles feels something ugly curl in his gut. How does she know what Erik would want? How does anyone know? He’s dead. He doesn’t want anything any more. He’ll never want anything any more. Charles bites his tongue.

 

“I’m fine, Raven, honestly,” he says. “Some times are just harder than others.” He sips at his water, says, “Don’t worry. Drinking runs in the family.”

 

Raven smiles, soft. “You know you can still come here,” she says. “Whenever.”

 

Charles nods. “I know,” he says. “Thank you.”

 

 

 

 

 

A woman is to meet him at the Jardin du Luxembourg, the entrance on Rue d’Assas, opposite Rue Vavin. Scottish, Sara had told him. He’s never met a Scottish communist before.

 

He spots a brunette stood by the metal gates, pixie face, culottes, white blouse. She could be any and all women in this city. She meets his eyes as he walks towards her, nods her head. He nods back.

 

“Charles Xavier,” he says. She offers a tight smile; takes his arm and walks them into the park.

 

“Moira MacTaggert,” she says. Her accent is soft, lilting. She changes to French, speaks fast, says, “Act as though we are lovers going for a stroll in the park. Do nothing to draw attention to us, or I will not be responsible for the consequences.”

 

Charles looks at her. She looks as dangerous as a mouse. Yet he knows better than to judge a book by its cover. He nods.

 

“Sara tells me you wish to pick up the armed struggle,” she says, walking them along. Spring is starting and flowers are coming through; green leaves on trees. “She also tells me you recently lost your partner. My condolences. My husband was killed at Dunkirk two years ago.”

 

Charles swallows. He wasn’t expecting a mention of Erik, hadn’t prepared himself for it, so he just nods, again. He wonders how she has carried on all this time with her husband dead.

 

“Thank you,” he says. “My condolences to you, too. And yes,” he says. “Sara is correct.”

 

“You want to avenge him,” Moira says. It’s odd, this façade she’s putting on, smiling as though they were discussing nothing but good times, but there are people around, anyone could be watching; he tries to match it.

 

“I want to do something more than than throw papers around,” he says. “It’s too late for me to join an army— there’s little chance of me getting back to Britain and enlisting.” And would he, even if he could? “So this is my only option.”

 

Moira hums. “I must admit, we have not yet done much,” she says. “We have a chemist who is manufacturing explosives. We also have railway workers among us— we are planning a derailment in the next few weeks.”

 

“What about assassinations?” Charles asks. “The German killed last August.”

 

She shakes her head. “Communists have killed Germans across the country— and yes, the killer of Moser was a communist. But I am afraid it leads to too many executions. Though some still believe assassinations are a good choice.”

 

Charles nods. “Okay,” he says. There’s a smirk in her eyes as she looks at him.

 

“You wanted blood on your hands,” she says. He looks at her, wants to deny it, that’s not the kind of man he is, only, it seems now, it is. “Do not worry,” she says. “You’ll have your vengeance. Just be prepared for its consequences.”

 

 

 

 

 

His twenty-eighth birthday passes with no fanfare. He tells the others he doesn’t want to celebrate; he plays cards with the kids and eats dinner with them. Scraps of meat, bread. He goes back home and gets drunk out of his mind. He’s the age Erik was when they first met.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. May 1942._



Charles watches them, their open-topped cars, their celebrations; red armbands, grey uniforms. Reinhard Heydrich come for a Parisian visit. Charles knows his name. The Butcher of Prague, the Hangman. How many has he killed? Oh, if Charles were any good with a sniper rifle.

 

 

 

 

 

They print a copy of _Liberté_ dedicated to Heydrich. They scrape together all the information they have on him. Jean and Georges spread _papillons_ with drawings of Heydrich with a noose around his neck, ones with him lain out like a pig in a butcher’s window.

 

Charles hasn’t told any of them about his meeting with Moira, the communist. Only Sara knows.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, SUN 24 MAY]

_I was always the good boy at school. I was smart, I did my homework, I played badminton. I never once had a detention, only once was sent to the headmaster for any reason other than being top of the class, the day I was caught with Edward Hoxley, told to forget it had ever happened. How odd time has been to see me here. I wonder if perhaps Edward is in the army, now. I wonder if all the boys I once knew are off somewhere in the fight._

_Tomorrow I will help derail a train. I wonder what the headmaster would think if he saw me now. I suppose it is different to its core— the boys who misbehaved in school were reprimanded, maybe caned, and sent on their way. Here if you are caught with so much as a foot out of line you are put up against a post and executed. There are no warnings here._

_I think I still do not want to die…who truly does? But I do not feel the same desire to stay alive as I did before. Yes, I have my friends, I have Raven, Hank, the girls, but I do not have Erik. As selfish of me as it is, he is all I want. I’d trade my soul with the Devil just to get him back, just to have him alive, even if it were not with me._

_I hope he is watching. I hope he sees what I do. I hope it makes a difference and I hope it makes him laugh. I am so excited I cannot sleep— I am like a child before Christmas Day._

_After all this time I am finally ready to do something more…Let it not be too late._

 

 

 

 

 

There is a building in the 14th arrondissement, close to the entrance of the catacombs; there is a flat on the fourth floor where people will be waiting for him. Moira had given him the address before they had parted ways, told him she’d see him soon.

 

He dresses like he does everyday, as if he were anyone, on their way to work, to see friends, to find food. He doesn’t feel like himself. He’s not the man he was when he came here. Nor is he the man he was when he last saw Erik. He can never see Erik again. Now the least he can do is something in his name.

 

At the flat he is introduced to the others— a brother and sister, Russian, Piotr and Illyana; two Hungarian Jews, Béla and Elie. There are more to be met at their next location.

 

 

 

 

 

They gather on the train tracks just outside of the city. The air is warm, grass green, the seasons carry on despite everything around them.

 

Charles helps plant explosives. He feels the weight of them heavy in his hands, thinks of what they’ll do, how something so small could do something so big. He thinks about what Erik would say if he knew. How he’d tease him, how he could never imagine Charles doing this, not in a million years. He smiles to himself as he stuffs a bomb under a sleeper.

 

 

 

 

 

They hear the sound of it from where they ran. Charles sees the light, the orange flame of it; the brown where soil has been kicked up. He hears the creak of metal, crash of carriages together. It’s louder than he’d thought, almost as if the ground vibrates with it, air full with it.

 

It was a train carrying supplies across the border, into Germany, to arm their soldiers, feed their killers.

 

Charles laughs. Béla is beside him; Charles claps him on the shoulder, stupid grin on his face— look at what he’s done. Erik, see what he has done! This is no words on paper, no sketches on _papillons_. Ha!

 

 

 

 

 

Moira tells him they must separate, now, for a while. They are to meet at the flat in two weeks’ time to regroup, to debrief; until then, not a word. If you pass one another on the street, do not speak, do not smile. Speak of this to no one. Not even your closest friend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. June 1942._



He finds it hard to keep quiet. He’s antsy with it, can’t sit still when anyone is around, when they’re all crowded in the Latin Quarter flat, talking about nothing, everything, anything. He wants to burst out with it just to see the look on their faces.

 

They find something else to talk about when Remy comes in, rushes through the door, red-faced from the stairs, says, “Heydrich’s dead. _Ha_!” he shouts, spreading his arms. “He’s dead.”

 

Just over a week ago Heydrich was shot at by members of the Czechoslovakian resistance— ambushed in his car, an assassination attempt gone wrong. Only now it seems it didn’t go wrong.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Sara says. “Are you serious?”

 

“Of course I am serious,” Remy says. “It’s all anyone out there is talking about. I had to stop myself from singing all the way.”

 

The mood in the room is lifted— look at what resistance can do. Charles shares grins with the teenagers; he knows they, too, are anxious to do more. Heydrich was at the top level of the Nazi food chain, behind so much horror; an inhuman human. He deserved to die the way of a rat crushed in a trap.

 

“Oh, this is just too good to be true,” Azazel says. “Another excuse for a drink or six?”

 

Emma shakes her head. “No,” she says. They look to her. “No celebrations until they take their revenge. Because God knows they will,” she says. “And God knows it won’t be merciful.”

 

 

 

 

 

It’s not the only news. Reports have come through of gas being used to murder Jews sent east. Of men, women, children, piled in the backs of vans, gas fed through a pipe attached to the exhaust.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s an awful feeling in him of forgetting. He’s not sure he can see Erik, anymore, where he used to sit, used to sleep. It’s getting harder.

 

 

 

 

 

He sees the first one on his way to the 14th arrondissement. A yellow star, ugly, sewn onto the front of a woman’s jacket. _Juif._ It makes him stop in his tracks, for a second, stare; the woman meets his eyes before turning away. His gut twists. They did this in Poland. And then came the ghettos. And then the camps. And now the gas.

 

 

 

 

 

Béla is the one to open the door. He smiles. Charles smiles back.

 

“I trust by now you have all heard the news of Heydrich,” Moira says. There are eleven of them in the room. Charles knows the names of only five of them. They all cheer. Moira grins. “Yes, yes. Very exciting. But I also trust that you know what this may mean to us.”

 

They know. It is not unlikely that the crackdown on resistance will worsen. If Heydrich can be killed, any German can be killed. It is inspiring but it is dangerous. And the consequences for what was Czechoslovakia are still unknown.

 

“This doesn’t mean that we stop,” Illyana says. Her French is heavy with her accent. She’s maybe twenty-one. Blonde hair.

 

“No, it does not,” Moira says. She turns to the man beside Charles. “What news do you have of our chemist friend?”

 

 

 

 

 

It’s odd, not to tell anyone. Raven asks how he’s been— he seems withdrawn, he’s been acting strange. He wants to tell her that there’s a woman named France who’s been making grenades and detonators in a laboratory in her flat since August last year.

 

“I’m fine,” he says. He smiles as he hears Kurt babbling to Hank; knows so many words, now. “I’m just— you know. I’m still coming to terms with everything.”

 

Raven nods. She passes him a mug of coffee, the piss-poor stuff, and they sit in the living room, listen to a record player hum violin music. Erik’s violin still sits on Charles’ desk. It collects dust.

 

 

 

 

 

They were right not to celebrate. News passes through, as it always does, and it tells of the reprisals in Bohemia and Moravia. Thousands arrested, thousands executed. Rumours spread of a village razed to the ground. That’s what happens. Thousands of yours for one of theirs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Paris, Occupied France. July 1942._



Two years of occupation have passed. How many more must they take? Another two? Four years. As long as the last one. The War to End All Wars.

 

 

 

 

 

A tract has appeared in the Jewish neighbourhoods, stuffed through letterboxes, pasted on empty shop fronts. Ruth brings one with her.

 

_Do not wait for these bandits in your home. Take all necessary measures to hide, and hide first of all your children with aid of sympathetic French people…If you fall into the hands of these bandits, resist in any way you can. Barricade the doors, call for help, fight the police. You have nothing to lose. You can only save your life. Seek to flee at every moment. We will not allow ourselves to be exterminated._

 

“What does this mean?” Jean asks. He looks up, curly hair over his forehead. “There is going to be another roundup?”

 

Charles looks at him. The look on his face is hard to stomach. His father is Jewish.

 

“We do not know,” Ruth says. She and Gabrielle still have their papers. “Possibly.”

 

 

 

 

 

He’s in his flat when it happens. He doesn’t even know it.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s another roundup. Just as the tract hinted; the police come, take thousands, drive away, cries heard as ghosts’ wails throughout the arrondissements. But Charles didn’t hear it. he was drinking and he didn’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

The streets are quieter as he walks through them. The emptiness is uneasy. The sun is out, breeze cool under his arms. Three years ago the parks would be full.

 

The flat is almost full by the time he makes his way there, all of them gathered in the living room.

 

The air feels tight as he walks through the door; they all turn, stare at him, faces flat. Jean is there. Charles feels a knot loosen in his throat, but another squeezes as Raven walks towards him, odd look on her, and he knows.

 

“Charles,” she says. Charles looks at her.

 

“What?” he says. He looks around them all; the kids won’t meet his eyes, Hank is looking at his feet. And Charles notices, then, who is missing. He looks back to Raven.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says. She reaches towards him, hands holding at his forearms. Charles shakes his head. No.

 

There’s a nervous laugh at the back of his mouth. “No,” he says. “They can’t have. Their papers— they were Christian, the never signed the censuses, they didn’t—”

 

He feels the familiar denial in him. He keeps shaking his head because it’s not true.

 

Tears itch at his eyes, he wipes them away with the heel of his hand, pulling out of Raven’s grip.

 

“We believe it was a neighbour,” Emma says. Charles’ attention jumps to her.

 

“What?” he says. He frowns, harsh enough to ache, asks, “What— why?”

 

Emma shrugs. The callousness of it rankles.

 

“We don’t know,” she says. “Sara went round to check in on them earlier, see if they had anyone in hiding with them. They weren’t in their flat. It had been ransacked.”

 

Sara looks at him as he looks at her. He doesn’t need to ask. She nods her head. Charles feels his wail building and he’s too tired to hold it back.

 

Raven goes to reach for him, to hold him as Gabrielle did, those months ago, and he doesn’t want it.

 

He steps back, shaking his head. He can see Raven’s arms outstretched towards him; they hover, unsure, between them. Charles wipes at his nose, inhale shaky with an ugly sound he swallows too late.

 

“Charles,” Raven says. He shakes his head again.

 

“No,” he says. He doesn’t look up when he turns and leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

He feels useless. He walks through the streets and he gets on the Métro and he sees the yellow stars. He isn’t meeting Moira and the others for another three days, and what does it matter, now, if he can blow up train tracks but can’t save the ones he loves?

 

 

 

 

 

He goes back home, back to the saloon, their saloon, his home for all these years, this Parisian heaven and hell, and there are no bottles left for him to smash. There are glasses tucked under the bar and he throws them, doesn’t look where, the noises like mirrors shattering.

 

He breathes heavy, shoulders rising, falling with it. His eyes move to the piano, the simplicity of it, the beauty of it. Will Ruth ever play it again?

 

Charles makes a noise, keen at the back of his throat.

 

He grabs one of the barstools. He doesn’t stop to think. There’s nothing for him to do. They’re gone; he doesn’t know where.

 

The sounds the keys make hurt his ears. He holds a leg of the stool in each hand, thrashes it against the piano to make it scream, splinters coming away, white and black falling to the floor; he screams with it.

 

 

 

 

 

He should have told them. About Moira, the communists, the train derailment; the bombs and the chemist and the chemicals. He should have asked, they would have joined, surely, Gabrielle so much like Erik. Maybe it would have helped. Maybe they could have been kept safe, that night, not dragged tooth and nail from their home. Charles slams his fists against the bar. He kicks a chair across the room, and he remembers the times this place was full. He misses choking on the cigarette smoke.

 

 

 

 

 

They are meeting today, those in the 14th arrondissement, and again, Charles is wondering, what is the point? Newsletters didn’t change anything. Derailing a train didn’t change anything. What will? What must he do? How many of theirs must he take before the tally is even?

 

They gather around a table and listen to Moira tell the facts of what they all already know. Over fifteen thousand, gone, taken; neighbourhoods all but cleared of their Jewish populations.

 

So what do they do?

 

“I want to kill them,” Béla says. Charles looks to him. It was a miracle he and Elie were not taken; they are foreign, they are Jews, but they do not wear the stars, they hide.

 

“It’s not as simple as that,” Moira says.

 

“To hell it isn’t,” Béla says. He’s maybe Charles’ age, haircut like Erik’s. “Who put you in charge? The only danger you face is if the Nazis decide to roundup the Scots once they’re done with the Jews.”

 

Moira frowns. She’s got a lot of fight in her, but she doesn’t shout. She is a communist, too, but she can hide that. Charles knows she knows that. And he knows she knows tensions are high.

 

“So what?” she says. “You want to go off and get yourself killed? Shoot one German to have them shoot a hundred of us?”

 

The anger has Béla’s cheeks moving with his jaws. No one says anything.

 

“Maybe I do,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

Charles stops him before they both leave. It might be now or never.

 

“I want the same,” he says. Béla looks at him. Charles licks at his lips, says, “They continue to take everything from me. I know they won’t stop. I want to take something of theirs.”

 

Béla smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

He stares out at the darkness of his bedroom, alone, wrapped around himself, and his mind wanders. Tomorrow. It is so soon. His world is falling so fast, nothing can stop it; he falls fast with it, as though he has snapped. He’s had enough, he’s had so much. He just wants it to end. He wishes Erik were here, to tell him what to do, to guide him; without him Charles can only hope this is right.

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, TUES 21 JULY]

_Today is the day. I will make Erik proud._

 

 

 

 

 

They meet. It is Charles, Béla, Elie. There is a voice that tells him he is out of place, he is not a Jew; he wears the necklace of one but will never be one, this is not his fight. But then he is reminded of the homosexuals in the camps; reminded that he, too, would be shot down like a rotten dog.

 

He hasn’t spoken to anyone since the roundup. He couldn’t bear to see their faces, to say goodbye, as if it were the last time. He thinks of Raven and Hank and Kurt and it almost stops him, but it doesn’t.

 

Sara was right, back then, when she’d said the communists were collecting firearms. Béla has a pistol. He says it is from Spain.

 

They have been gifted the handiwork of France, up in her apartment laboratory. Grenades.

 

The plan is this: they find an area packed with as many Germans they can find. Charles and Elie both are to throw their grenades. Béla will shoot at any German or any police who get in the way in their escape.

 

The escape: separate after a few minutes. Béla, familiar with the catacombs, he will take refuge there. Charles, the alleyways and empty buildings of the Latin Quarter. Elie will get on the Métro and make his way to Anvers. Montmartre. They will stay quiet for the next week. Then they will meet again.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a café. It is full of Germans, of grey uniforms. They even gather outside in the warmth, rats in the sun.

 

Charles knows that there will be innocent people in there. The staff, the owners. He lulls himself with the possibility that they may be collaborators, that perhaps they have handed people in, that perhaps they are no better than the Germans they serve.

 

He and Elie stand in the doorway. There is that cliché, that time slows, at times like this, but it doesn’t. It’s too fast. His hands are sweaty and the back of his neck is sweaty. There’s this claustrophobic feeling up in his chest like he can’t wait to do it but he still wants to run, it’s not too late, what about all the bad things that will come of this?

 

They count to three. Their voices attract attention; Charles looks a Wehrmacht man in the eyes.

 

They throw their grenades. Charles to the left, Elie to the right. They clatter on the floor.

 

There are voices. Shouts. There are flashes of movement and the scrapes of chairs as men stand; blurs of movement that may be hands to guns, may not be.

 

Charles thinks of Erik. He turns and he runs.

 

 

 

 

 

Its beat makes it feel as though his heart will leak out his ears. The noise rings through them, still, the high-pitched aftermath of twin blasts, this whine, a hiss, glass torn apart, _boom; boom._

 

He’s unsure of how to feel— at the moment he can feel nothing but the exhilaration and the panic marred into one, the need to get away, they’ve done it, now he only has to survive it.

 

He hears gunshots that echo like the sounds of his shoes. He’s unsure whether or not it is Béla. He supposes it does not matter; only it would be nice for Germans to be shot, too, as well as blown up.

 

Ha! To think that this is him, Charles Xavier, posh boy from Oxford, too scared to take on Spanish fascists, too scared to stand up to the bullies at school.

 

His legs ache, feel as though they’ll buckle. He keeps going. His lungs burn and he thinks no one is following him.

 

He makes it to the Latin Quarter and he almost loses himself, but he’s learnt this place by now. There’s a building without a concierge and he will hide there. And then he will go home. He’ll go home.

 

 

 

 

 

They did it. Charles survived. He won’t know If the others did until next week.

 

 

 

 

 

He goes home with his head held high. He smiles at policemen and even gives a German directions. They’re wrong; send him the opposite way.

 

He lies on his bed and he cannot help himself— he laughs. He looks at the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach, head on his pillow, beside Erik’s pillow, and he laughs. He gets himself in near hysterics, tears from his eyes with it, but he doesn’t see the need to stop. So he laughs.

 

 

 

 

 

As the days pass more happens. Twelve German soldiers were killed. The number is so low and so large all at once.

 

There’s a mix coiling in his gut, happiness fighting a losing battle with the slow panic that comes, ebbs at him, the worry, the what now? Police and Germans alike are searching; they’re desperate to know— who did this?

 

Charles sits in his flat as others are taken away for what he did. He shuts his curtains and he makes as little noise as possible. He picks at his nails until he bleeds and he thinks, oh, Christ. His sense of pride is washed over by this awful feeling of regret, hideous. Did he do the right thing? Erik? Did he do the right thing?

 

 

 

 

 

He knows, if he had not done what he did, these people would be safe, all the ones arrested; there would be no one to shoot if a crime had not been committed. He looks at himself in the cracks of the bathroom mirror. He doesn’t like what he sees.

 

 

 

 

 

He finishes the last bottle of alcohol left in his flat, gin. Madame is gone, Erik is gone, Ruth and Gabrielle are gone. The ones who showed him the way in Paris, who befriended him, who decided, despite his clueless Englishness, that they liked him.

 

He thinks, maybe he could do it again. Throw another grenade. Maybe if he killed more Germans than they killed innocents. But how many is that? How much blood has to soak his hands before he wins? Before he feels happy again?

 

 

 

 

 

[JOURNAL ENTRY, SUN 16 JULY]

 _What have I done…I no longer know how I feel. I was so sure it was the right thing to do, finally some direct action, something that Erik and his men would have done, all the way in Poland. My mind is everywhere— I do not know what I am supposed to do. I have no idea how many have been taken for what we did, what I did. Is this truly what Erik would have wanted? Is this what I wanted? I do not know. But I did it. I wish I could sleep until this whole thing was over. I wish so much I could sleep tonight and wake up in 1937. I am so sorry for all the wrongs I have ever done_.

 

 

 

 

 

They’re supposed to meet, Charles, Béla, Elie, but Charles doesn’t go. They killed some Germans but how many others have they sentenced to death in their wake? He feels like a stupid child who has made the biggest mistake of his life.

 

 

 

 

 

They come knocking at his door, 5AM on a Tuesday morning, but it is not who he feared. Instead, there is Sara and Raven, no Gestapo men, no leather gloves around pistol grips.

 

“Pack a bag,” Sara says.

 

Charles frowns. “What?”

 

He watches as Raven walks past him, down to his bedroom, quiet, she doesn’t say hello. She’s already pulling clothes out of the wardrobe by the time he follows her down the hallway.

 

“What are you doing?” he asks. He feels drunk with his sleep and the remnants of alcohol left in him.

 

“Are you deaf or just stupid?” Sara asks. She looks at him. “Both.”

 

“What are you doing?” he asks, again. He doesn’t understand, sleep heavy in his head. He finds it is hard to sleep when your mind keeps shouting, arguing with itself; he feels almost like a madman. Maybe he is.

 

Raven folds a few of his shirts, two pairs of trousers, goes rummaging over to his drawers.

 

“You’re leaving,” she says. She doesn’t look at him as she says it. “Today.”

 

“What?” Charles says. He frowns. He shakes his head, no. His first instinct is to argue, to say no. No, he’s not leaving, not now, not after everything.

 

But he catches up with himself. He looks at Raven, looks to Sara; they’re both so exhausted, they’re all so exhausted, so sick of it all.

 

Sara says, “You have learnt Erik’s stubbornness, I know that. But you must also know that if you stay, you die. And so do the rest of us.”

 

Charles shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No, you won’t— I won’t let them. I won’t let them hurt you.”

 

Sara shakes her head, wry little sad smile on her face. Charles finds himself wondering if she still has all those cats. “You can’t stop them,” she says. “Moira told me it was you. The grenades. You’ve already made a target of yourself, Charles. Do anything like it again and they will track you and kill you— kill everyone you have ever spoken to. My God, how I wish I never introduced you to her.”

 

Some of him still wants to argue. This is his home, no matter how many Germans infest it. Maybe if he stays, he can protect them, all of them at the newsletter; surely they cannot all be taken from him. But they can. They all know they can. Ruth and Gabrielle were taken and he could do nothing.

 

Tears bite at his eyes.

 

He feels five years old when he says, “It’s not fair.”

 

Raven stops her folding and comes to him, quick on her feet as she wraps him in a hug. He clings to her.

 

“You’re an idiot,” she says. She presses her face to his neck, says, “God, Charles— you must be insane.”

 

He barks a laugh, wet. “I think maybe I am.”

 

 

 

 

 

There is a man who will accompany you to Marseille, they tell him. A man who will take you to the boat— go as far as Algeria with you. His name is Thomas. He’s English. He is like you in many ways.

 

Charles doesn’t get to say his goodbyes to anyone else. There is only Raven and Sara. He is glad, though, that it is these two. That it’s Raven. He can’t help but cry, again, promises of reunions, when this is all over, hugs so tight he can’t breathe but can’t stand to loosen his arms. Raven presses a scrap of paper into his hands, an address, friends in New York City, and she tells him to say hello from her and Hank.

 

Charles tells the two of them to say goodbye to everyone else. And to say sorry. He’s so sorry for what he’s done, what he hasn’t done, he’s so sorry he can’t end it all for them, this stupid damned war.

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas is maybe Erik’s age. He’s Charles’ height and his smile his bright. He introduces himself with it, a shake of the hand, too, an east London accent to his, “Charles, yeah? I’m Thomas. Let’s get ourselves out to Africa, then, shall we?”

 

 

 

 

 

The trip is long. It’s hiding in the backs of farmers’ carts and walking miles at night time.

 

Charles feels almost empty. He feels queasy with a sadness and guilt that swims in his stomach, anxiety choking in his throat. He doesn’t say much, doesn’t talk much, this far-off look in his eyes he knows makes him look like a dead-man walking. So Thomas does all the talking.

 

He tells Charles that his partner is in the US Air Force, and that he’s out in the Pacific. At least that’s the last Thomas heard. He can’t even get letters; his partner can’t send them, like the others do their girlfriends, wives, and then it’s not as though they’d get through, either, not so far, not into Occupied France. It makes Charles’ chest hurt.

 

 

 

 

 

The third night, close to the end, Charles tells Thomas about Erik.

 

They lie in an abandoned shed, cold enough to have them huddled under coats, and Charles just gives it all up, can’t shut himself up. It comes out of him. If he is to die in this war he might as well die having someone else know his story, their story. He tells Thomas almost everything there is to know about him and Erik. And he lets himself be comforted in the arms of a man with such a similar life. No one has held him this way in two and a half years. And it’s fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Marseille, Vichy France. August 1942._



This is it. The heat and the wind whip against him.

 

Thomas stands beside him, puts a hand on his arm. “You ready?”

 

Charles nods. He gives a small smile, hair sticking to his mouth. He’s ready. “Yeah.”

 

Goodbye, France.


	5. Chapter 5

**PART FIVE**

**1942**

  1. _Casablanca, French Morocco. September 1942._



The heat is sick. It’s overbearing. It hangs and it crowds, sneaks under doors.

 

He’s been here six weeks now and he can’t stand it. He wasn’t supposed to be stuck here, this place with too much sun and too little else. He thinks sometimes he should have just stayed in Paris, waited out the inevitable, faced the music. Here is just some sort of limbo between getting out and staying in.

 

There’s an awful sense of déjà-vu as he sits at the bar of the saloon. There are two flats above; he lives in one, a thousand-and-a-half miles from the last.

 

 

 

 

 

He never thought he’d get to this. A little over five years ago he made that move from London to Paris. All he’s used to is cities, grey skies, he never thought he’d be in a place he can barely breathe, a place so distant.

 

He supposes it doesn’t matter, not really. The endpoint is America, across the Atlantic, and what is he going to do there, when he gets there? He only has so much money left. What will he do, wander the streets, sleep on the settees of Raven’s friends until they’ve had their fill? Maybe it isn’t so bad to be trapped here, with all those others trapped here.

 

 

 

 

 

The man who owns the saloon is called Logan. He’s Canadian, was in Spain with the International Brigades. Lived in Amsterdam until the Nazis came.

 

It’s five times the size of the girls’ place, maybe more. There are four rooms, connected to one another with big open doorways; giant tables for card games, for roulette, booths for people to crowd themselves around; a terrace to drink at in the shade. It’s colonial, big, grand, done up and fancy for the soldiers and the refugees and the locals.

 

Logan catches him one night, as he’s about to go to bed, his head pounding, hand at his elbow.

 

“Hey, kid,” he says. “I need you to work behind the bar. Not tonight,” he says. “Starting tomorrow. That something you think you can do?”

 

He doesn’t know much about who Charles used to be, back in Paris. Charles didn’t think it safe. Vichy men come into this place. He doesn’t know who to trust. Any slip could be suicide. Sometimes he thinks even that wouldn’t matter.

 

Charles nods. “Yes, of course,” he says. He shrugs. Maybe someone has left, finally gotten the money together for a bribe, a ticket out. “I don’t have anything else to be doing.”

 

Logan claps him on the shoulder. “Cheers,” he says. Charles is halfway to the stairs when he hears, called after him, “Oh, and it’s no drinking on the job, either. Might want to get that out of your system tonight, I were you.”

 

Charles purses his lips. He turns back to the bar.

 

 

 

 

 

Serving drinks reminds him of Gabrielle. Only once does he let his mind wander, chasing after the thought of where is she, where is Ruth? Are they still together? Were they taken out east by those trains, were they shoved in a camp like Erik, like all the others? Are they alive?

 

The people here are all different. There are women in cocktail dresses, rouged lips, and there are women in trousers, washed out blouses, tired eyes; men in suits and men in uniforms and men in dirty dusty shirts.

 

A man in Vichy uniform asks Charles for a whisky. There’s the temptation to spit in it. He meets the eyes of Darwin, another barman, smirk on his face like he knows what’s in Charles’ head.

 

“Tempting, huh?” he says, the two of them leant back against the shelving, Vichy little man long gone. “I once spat in the cocktail of a woman draped over a policeman. Logan saw me, though,” he says, shaking his head. “Smacked me round the back of the head, told me I do it again, I’m out on my ass.”

 

Charles smiles. “Maybe I can get away with it once, too, then.”

 

 

 

 

 

Every night he feels insects on him; every morning he wakes to bites and blotches. His skin is a constant red from sunburn and tiny teeth.

 

He’s stopped writing in his journal. There doesn’t feel like much point, he’s too tired for it, he doesn’t care for it. It sits on his bedside table, bulging at the back with letters he no longer reads, too exhausted, too hot to stay up all night and cry. He feels drained, as though everything has finally seeped out of him, the war and the heat finally bled him dry.

 

This is what it does, war, to everyone it keeps in his teeth. Why did it have to come now? He feels selfish, when he thinks it, but why him, why them, why this time, why this generation? Was the last one not enough? Why couldn’t somebody else have it, fifty years from now, Charles and everyone he cares for too old to care?

 

Some nights he sets himself up on the floor by the window, rests his forearms on its sill and his chin and his cheek on his forearms, watches the clouds and the sky and hears the buzz of mosquitos and the awful squeaks and chirps of crickets, too loud in the stillness of the sand. He misses the sound of rain.

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of the staff are American. Darwin, for one, and a blond-haired boy named Alex who deals cards in a white tuxedo. The accents make Charles think of Harry’s, of Hank, of Raven, of Emma. Sometimes it’s disorientating. Sometimes it makes him smile. He misses them so; it burns in him.

 

“I wanna get out of here and join the Air Force,” Alex says to them, one day, before the crowds get in. He leans his elbows on the bar. “Got fuckin’ stuck in this place before we got involved. Now it looks like I’m gonna be here ‘til it’s over.”

 

Darwin hums. He cleans a glass, eyes on it to get rid of a smudge, says, “’Least this way you’ll be alive by the end of it. Better than at the bottom of the Pacific in a flying coffin.”

 

Charles thinks about Thomas, his boy out over the Pacific. He wonders what Thomas is doing.

 

 

 

 

 

Five years has gone so fast. September 24th. He misses Erik so much its like a hole in his chest. It has this sadness eating deep in his gut.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Casablanca, French Morocco. October 1942._



It’s a Thursday, when he finds out; when Logan tells him.

 

“I’m giving everyone a heads up,” Logan says. They’re about to open for the evening. Charles looks to him. “Word is there’s some Nazi Major coming sniffing around sometime in the next week or so— looking for some resistance kid who kicked up some sort of a stink, or some other bullshit. Nothing to worry about. Just make sure you keep a smile on your face. And no spitting. Got it?”

 

Charles feels himself go cold. His tongue stuffs up the back of his mouth.

 

Logan looks at him. “What?” he says. “You afraid of some Nazi? Just keep your shit together, kid, you’ll be fine.”

 

Charles swallows. His thumbs stroke along the glass in his hands. He doesn’t look at Logan. “Do you know who they’re looking for?”

 

There’s a pause. “No,” Logan says, “funnily enough, they didn’t share that information with the saloon owner. Why?” he asks. “You know someone?”

 

Charles shakes his head. There’s the familiar panic in him coming back, stirring up his gut and choking up his throat. He feels sweaty and clammy with it.

 

“No,” he says. He looks up to Logan, looking at him, frown on his face. “No, it’s fine. I don’t know anyone.”

 

 

 

 

 

Logan lets it lie, if only for the time it takes for the place to close, the last people to leave, and he catches Charles at the stairs, again, calls after him. Charles stops.

 

He’s spent the evening mixing drinks with hands that shook every so often. A Nazi Major wouldn’t follow him all the way out here, out off the continent, there must be something else, someone else, something bigger. All he did was derail a train, throw one grenade. There must be bigger fish to fry. There has to be.

 

Logan leans against the stairwell wall, arms across his stomach. “There anything you want to tell me?”

 

Charles licks at his teeth. His fight or flight kicks at him, but he stays where he is.

 

“No,” he says. “I don’t think so. Good night.”

 

He goes to turn, to go to bed, to sleep, finally, but there’s no letting it lie, this time.

 

“You know something about why we’ve got this Nazi asshole coming to visit,” Logan says. There’s a sigh. “Look, you tell me, maybe I can help. You don’t, you’re on your own.”

 

Charles looks down to him, taller with the stairs.

 

He shifts on his feet, unsure. Does he trust this man? Does it matter? He pulls his lip through his front teeth.

 

“I was part of the resistance,” he says. It’s too fast, a hurry to get it out of his mouth. “In Paris.”

 

Logan’s eyebrows raise. There’s this look on his face, something like disbelief. “You serious?”

 

Charles nods. “Yes,” he says. Sweat prickles at the back of his neck.

 

“Huh,” Logan says. He looks to Charles, his eyebrows pinched towards one another. “So that’s why you ran all the way out to the asshole of nowhere,” he says. “What’d you do, exactly?”

 

Charles’ nails dig into his own skin. Logan fought fascists in Spain, just as Carmen did, just as Charles’ friends did— Charles can trust him, surely, can’t he? What is there to gain by throwing him to the Nazis?

 

“I made newsletters,” he says. He watches as Logan nods, as his jaw relaxes, and he almost doesn’t want to say it when he says, “I helped derail a train. And I threw a grenade that killed Germans.”

 

Logan’s eyes flick up to him. “You fucking did what?”

 

A hysteric little laugh bubbles its way out of Charles’ mouth. God, how ridiculous it is— look at him, short, wiry with hunger; looks like he belongs in Oliver Twist, picking pockets.

 

“Fuck me. So what,” Logan says, one hand against the railing, “you think they could be looking for you?”

 

Charles nods. “Yes. Maybe,” he says. “I’m not sure.” The panic ebbs at him. He’s come all this way and it still might not be enough. “There are people who have done worse, people that— why would they send someone out for me? I’m not— I’m no one.”

 

They didn’t know who he was, did they, that day when he threw the grenade and ran? They can’t have seen his face for long, those who lived. The Wehrmacht man whose eyes he met is most likely dead.

 

Logan licks at his lips; they twist as he bites at his cheek.

 

“You know, it would’ve been nice to know this before I let you take the apartment,” he says. Charles looks down. He doesn’t want the guilt that comes with it but it comes anyway.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says. He rubs a hand up over his mouth, his nose. “I just— I needed somewhere to stay.”

 

Logan shakes his head. There’s a half-smirk on his face, quiet snigger of a laugh at the back of his throat.

 

“You look like a librarian,” he says. Charles frowns. “No offence, kid, you just don’t look like you’d be blowing up Germans.”

 

Charles purses his lips, can feel his smile coming, despite it all; the absurdity. He feels mad, like this is a different world, like he’s living inside a cuckoo clock.

 

Logan rubs at his forehead, says, “Fuck. Right.” He says, “Just— when this Nazi comes in, you go to the staff bathroom. Lock the door. Wait it out in there. I’ll come get you when they’ve gone.”

 

Charles’ shoulders drop, relaxing. His chest deflates with his breath, and he almost feels like crying, the relief of it.

 

“Thank you,” he says. “Christ, Logan— thank you.”

 

Logan hums. He takes a step back down the stairs, says, “Let’s just hope it’s like you said, and this bastard has bigger problems to tend to than some scrappy British kid.”

 

 

 

 

 

Charles goes to bed, but he can’t sleep through the night. It’s too hot and his panic makes him sweat.

 

He just needs to last through this. Then through however long it takes to get out; however long it takes for this damned war to end, for the Nazis to get kicked out and down to Hell. However long it takes to get back to Paris, no more jackboots.

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is as usual the next day, everyone acts the same, there are no Nazis, only regulars and visitors, locals and refugees. The heat seeps through open doors and windows, ice buckets leaving puddles on bar tops.

 

“Logan tell you?” Darwin asks. He stands beside Charles, cocktail shaker in his hands. “You know, ‘bout the visitor?”

 

Charles nods. “Yes,” he says. “He told me yesterday.”

 

Darwin hums, more of a grunt. “Can’t say anyone’s looking forward to it,” he says. “You know there’s no spitting— think one of us could get away with pissing in a Nazi’s champagne flute?”

 

Charles huffs a laugh, shaking his head, smile pulling at him.

 

“I’d certainly like to try,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

Some nights the winds howl at him. They whistle and groan, throw his curtains up in the air. They remind him of the winds by the Seine, in winter, woollen scarves pulling away with the breeze.

 

He tries not to think it, when he’s like this, awake when everyone else is asleep, but he can’t help it, everything seems hopeless, as though hope were a million miles and a million years away. Will he ever see the Seine again? Will Paris ever be the same again? Her light has been pinched out by leather gloves. Would he want to return, all those awful images left in his head, the stars and the roundups, the executions, the empty flat that bears Erik’s name on its deeds?

 

Oh, how Charles wants him. Without the others around him it is once more a raw wound he cannot help but pick at. Here he is stuck doing nothing. He is no help to anyone, except the woman wanting a martini, the man wanting a whisky. All he has is time and his stupid damned head playing memories back to him like a picture reel on repeat.

 

He wants to run out into the deserts and scream Erik’s name until he finds him again. He wants to howl back at the winds.

 

 

 

 

 

Alex has big ideas of killing the Germans coming to visit. He spouts them off whenever he can; Charles has almost mentioned the grenade too many times, catching himself before he speaks, says, you know, I’ve killed Germans.

 

“Logan’s gotta have at least one gun in this place,” Alex says, leant so far over the bar Charles is unsure his feet are touching the ground, the other side. “What if we were just to— you know— just shoot the son of a bitch before he even got his first drink? Or before he got the chance to sit his slimy Kraut ass on our seats?”

 

“You know damn well this guy ain’t coming here alone,” Darwin says. “And Germans got good aim. You’d be dead before you could even see your Nazi’s brains pop out all over the place.”

 

Alex frowns. “Alright, well, what if we lured them all into one room, and just— boom.”

 

This is where Charles almost says it. He wants to— wants to feel as though he’s done something worthwhile, to be proud of, wants to see the looks on their faces. Hey, guys, did you know I blew up a café full of Germans?

 

“’Boom’?” Darwin says. He’s got on a sarcastic little smirk. “And where you gonna get something to make this ‘boom’?”

 

It goes on, the two bickering between themselves. Charles listens, amused. He’d still like nothing better than to see another Nazi dead. Maybe Alex can come up with a plan that will work.

 

 

 

 

 

Another commotion spreads rumours, a few days later; two Germans found dead in the desert.

 

“They say they were couriers,” Darwin says.

 

Isobel, the French girl who plays the guitar, sings, she takes her glass and she says, “Do you hear also that they were carrying letters of transit? Tickets out of this hell?”

 

“Hell is a strong word,” Logan says. He sits at his favourite barstool. “I like to think my saloon has more charm. Not as bad as hell, maybe as bad as Boston.”

 

Darwin snorts a laugh. Isobel frowns, these little lines by her eyes, in her forehead.

 

“You know how hard it is to get out,” she says, “hell or not. I have been here two years waiting to leave.”

 

It seems impossible, to be trapped here all that time. Charles can hardly bear the thought of it.

 

 

 

 

 

He thinks maybe his friends in London wouldn’t recognise him. He’s thinner than he’s ever been, cheeks this ghostly hollow; the life of cheap champagne and beef wellingtons another life away. He doesn’t know how many of them got out of Spain alive.

 

He wonders after everyone back in France, in Paris. He thinks of Raven, Hank, baby Kurt; Sara and Emma and everyone at _Liberté_ — the kids, are they still printing, are they still trying? What about Béla and Elie, what has become of them? Kitty and her mother? Carmen? God, how he longs to know. His mind tortures him with nothing but negatives. This war could take everything from him— and what is to stop it.

 

 

 

 

 

Logan tells him as soon as he finds out. The Major is to arrive in Casablanca Saturday afternoon, come nosing around the saloon later in the evening. Nazis work weekends.

 

He reminds Charles, says, “Just do what I said last week. You see a Nazi uniform; you go to the staff bathroom. Stay there. Got it?”

 

 

 

 

 

The dread in him doesn’t go away; he says to himself, thinks, three days and this part is over. He can go back to waiting for it all to end, hiding himself in the desert.

 

 

 

 

 

Fridays are always busiest. Charles starts serving at five o’clock, the place already half-full, clogged with voices, music, far-off sound of roulette wheels, balls clattering between numbers.

 

Perhaps this time tomorrow there will be a Nazi in the building. It unnerves him in more ways than one. The saloon is often home to more than a few refugees, a few dozen of them, most nights, and among them, Jews. Do they know who they may share the room with tomorrow night? Are they safe?

 

 

 

 

 

Charles remembers when they first met. He remembers the smoke in the bar and the man with the violin, Oscar Wilde; he remembers Ruth and the piano, Gabrielle and the drinks. Friday night. Maybe there’s something about Fridays.

 

He’s wiping down the bar when he sees him. The crowd is thick, but he sees him; the man sat alone, at a table across the room, half-empty glass in front of him. Charles feels his stomach drop.

 

He stares; it’s all he can do. The cloth in his hand leaves a puddle beneath it as his fist clenches, as he sees this man, dirty brown clothes among white suits and black dresses.

 

A woman asking for a vodka soda turns Charles away. His head snaps to her. She raises an eyebrow and repeats herself.

 

“Sorry, yes, of course,” Charles says. The man is still there when he looks; still there when he turns back from grabbing the bottles, not an apparition, not a daydream.

 

The woman smiles as she takes her glass, says, “Merci,” and there are another four waiting for drinks. Charles feels sick.

 

 

 

 

 

The man is still there. He’s still there— Charles sees him, the side of his face, his nose, his jaw, half-hidden with rust-red beard, that fisherman’s beard.

 

He thinks he’s seeing a ghost, a ghost sat alone, drinking whisky, in a saloon in Casablanca.

 

He knows. God, he knows— how can he not?— in his gut, he knows it, but his head says no, no, it can’t be, the man sat there died in Poland all those months ago, shot down like a dog escaped from its cage, maybe left in snow, frozen. The man sat there is dead and Charles is stuck behind a goddamned bar.

 

He forces himself to turn away, feels himself panic, ill-feeling in the back of his throat. Impossible. His eyes slip back in seconds.

 

That man, Tomasz— Charles remembers that feeling, that letter, that denial, that thought that Tomasz had been wrong. He hadn’t felt it in him that Erik had died. Erik, God, Erik. Two years and nine months.

 

 

 

 

 

Charles wants to go to him. He wants to see, to touch, — he is real!— but he cannot. More customers want serving, Darwin already busy at the end of the bar; he’s a child waiting to open his presents on Christmas morning, he’s a bride waiting for her wedding vows.

 

Only when it’s calmer, everyone drunk enough, Charles looks over, and the man, Erik, he is sure of it, is gone.

 

He freezes. No. No, no— he will not lose this just to serve a woman her fifth cocktail.

 

He doesn’t bother excusing himself, telling Darwin he’s taking a break; he runs out from behind the bar and into the crowd, God, it’s too busy in this damned place, too hot; he stands on the tips of his toes and feels like screaming.

 

He pushes his way past people, too harsh to be polite. He’s panicking. He feels it in him, the way it feels as though he can’t breathe.

 

There’s no sign of him.

 

Charles all but runs outside. There’s no one out on the courtyard, and, God; he looks up at the black sheet of sky, runs his hands through his hair and breathes in the dust. He cries, quiet tears down his face as he staggers, because either he is going crazy, madder than before, or Erik was here, and now he has gone.

 

“Oh, God,” he says. He collapses into one of the patio’s chairs, metal, lolls forward with elbows on the table.

 

He should have just stayed. In Paris, he should have stayed, he should have helped— now look at him, stuck here, going mad with heat and heartache.

 

 

 

 

 

Darwin is looking at him when he comes back into the saloon, into their room, but Charles doesn’t say anything.

 

He goes to the men’s toilets, doesn’t bother with the staff bathroom, doesn’t have the key on him, and there, at the mirror, at the sinks, looking down at his hands, is him.

 

Charles stops in his tracks. The door swings shut behind him, a clatter back and forth, and right in front of him is the man who should be a ghost or a ghoul, anything but in a toilet in a saloon in Casablanca.

 

And, oh, it is him. He’s pale, too thin, hair short, uneven. But it is him.

 

It’s punched out of him as he says it. First time in months, he says, “Erik.”

 

His voice cracks, Eh-rik, and the man’s head jerks to him.

 

He stares back. Erik, his eyes so wide, sunken, this haunted look to them, and he stares. “Charles.”

 

Oh, God, what a dream, what a place— damned Casablanca.

 

Charles’ legs almost buckle beneath him as they step towards one another. He doesn’t have time to think before arms are around him, his arms around Erik; he pushes his face into Erik’s neck and holds on too tight, sob strangled in his throat. He feels so much smaller, wasted away, sparrow-thin. Charles wraps hands in fabric and breathes. He smells the same.

 

They don’t say anything. Charles’ voice is caught in his chest. He just holds the man they told him was dead, the man that left to fight, all that time ago. The man he loved and loves.

 

Erik pulls back, his hands winding up to hold Charles’ face, thumbs either side of his nose.

 

“Mój boże,” he says. His voice is small, sad little smile. “Look at the bags under your eyes,” he says, thumbs stroking, pressing, soft, “have you not slept in all this time?”

 

Charles holds onto the front of Erik’s jacket. His fingers ache. He matches Erik’s smile. With a shake of his head, he says, “Barely.”

 

Erik smooths fingers behind Charles’ ear, into his hair. He combs it, gentle, over, over; knuckles brushing the side of Charles’ cheek. Charles breathes.

 

He brings a finger up under Erik’s chin, so slow, and he just touches, after all this time, other fingers uncurling to join. The beard scratches against his skin. He looks at Erik’s eyes. His cheekbones make his face look more like the skull beneath it.

 

“How are you here,” he says. “How are you— how are you not just a dream?”

 

Erik rests his hands at Charles’ shoulders; they curve with Charles’ neck.

 

“I could ask you the same,” he says.

 

Charles shakes his head, no, his hands moving to grab hold of Erik’s. Only he doesn’t speak, can’t, forgets to, now he’s got Erik’s hands in his. He feels like a fool, but he can’t help himself; he stares at their hands and he feels Erik’s skin against his.

 

“God,” he says. He runs his thumbs over Erik’s knuckles. “You’re real.” He looks up, stupid grin on his face. Erik grins back. His teeth are the same.

 

“I’m real,” he says. It feels like a fairytale. The king has come back from the war.

 

Charles says, “I thought you were dead.” Erik looks at him, little frown to his eyes. They’re stood in the middle of the men’s room and he thought Erik was dead, all this time. “I thought— God, I hoped you weren’t, I did, but they told me you were, and I—”

 

“Hey,” Erik says. He takes back one of his hands to cup Charles’ jaw. “Who told you I was dead? Someone sent a letter?”

 

Charles nods. God, his chest feels full enough to split. “In February,” he says. “A man named Tomasz, he told me you’d been killed, trying to escape that camp— that only two people made it out. And you weren’t one of them.”

 

His eyes are hot with tears, he doesn’t want to remember it, that letter, that feeling in him when he read those words. He wipes at them with the back of his spare hand.

 

“Tomasz,” Erik says. His half-smirk is there, and that’s the same, too. He shakes his head, says, “I didn’t think anyone else got away. I thought—”

 

He stops himself, looks up at the ceiling. The lights are too bright. Charles watches him realise his friend is still alive. He smiles.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Erik says. He brushes a thumb under Charles’ eye, takes tears away. He leans down, to kiss, and Charles closes his eyes to it, this soft peck, chapped lips. “I’m so sorry.”

 

Charles shakes his head. Erik presses their foreheads together, and Charles breathes, holds the front of Erik’s jacket. He’s on his tiptoes to kiss, again, firmer, this time. It’s been so long he feels he could’ve forgotten.

 

“It’s okay,” he says. He runs his thumb over Erik’s eyebrow. It is. “It’s okay.”

 

Erik smiles. “Forgive me,” he says. “As much as I’d like to kiss you forever, I fear the men’s bathroom of a Moroccan saloon is not the best place for it.”

 

Charles laughs, wet. It feels like a dream, a creation of the heat, his wartime madness.

 

He can’t help his smile, says, “I have a flat, upstairs.”

 

Erik hums, a warm vibration between them. “A flat above a saloon,” he says. He’s smiling. Charles just might melt with it. He feels like throwing his fist in the air, shouting, telling the world, Erik is here, Erik is safe, Erik is with him. Oh, how he wishes he could tell Raven, Emma, how he wishes Ruth and Gabrielle could know. Erik says, “I can’t help but feel we’ve done this once before.”

 

 

 

 

 

Logan won’t be pleased with him, come morning, leaving halfway through his shift, but right now, Charles couldn’t give a damn. Buckingham Palace could be on fire and he could not care less.

 

They stand in the middle of his flat, the mess of it, clothes anywhere but the wardrobe, empty glasses, empty bottles. His half-empty bottle of gin props the window open.

 

“Every day I’ve dreamt of kissing you,” Erik says. His hands are gentle at Charles’ face, a barely there touch; he says, “Can I kiss you? Properly?”

 

Charles nods. He knows he’ll cry, is almost there as soon as Erik presses their mouths together, more than just a peck; he opens up to Erik’s tongue and he whines with it, high moan as he creases hands in the front of Erik’s shirt.

 

He has so much to tell him. What has become of Paris, all that has happened, all the ugly sorrows, but they can wait. The world can wait.

 

“I love you,” Charles says. He opens his eyes, finds Erik looking back at him, those big eyes, baby blues. “I love you so much I can barely stand it.”

 

Erik smiles. “I love you, too.”

 

He smooths his hands down Charles’ neck, feeling him over like this is the first time, over Charles’ ribs, his stomach, his hips. He kisses Charles, hungrier, now, the familiar possessiveness of him as his grip tightens at Charles’ waist, as Charles surrenders himself to it; he’s gone so long without this he fears he’ll go off in minutes.

 

He breathes, Erik’s mouth pushing kisses into his jawline, his neck.

 

“Do you want to?” Erik asks. His nose brushes Charles’ earlobe.

 

Does he want to? God, what a ridiculous question. He nods.

 

“Yes,” he says. He brings his hands to grip in Erik’s hair, hold him. “God, yes, Erik— I want you. I want all of you. I always have. I always will.”

 

Erik’s mouth comes back to his. They’re desperate with it, hold onto one another, and Charles never wants to let go again. He never wants to let Erik out of his sight, out of his reach. He wants the last few months to disappear.

 

“Bed,” he says. He walks backwards, fists in Erik’s shirt pulling him along.

 

“I thought I’d have to wait another lifetime to have this again,” Erik says. He fits himself between Charles’ legs, jacket shrugged off, duvet pushed away, down onto the floor. “I thought I’d have to fight monsters my whole life just to have you again.”

 

Charles aches; he has tears at his eyes, his sadness and his happiness curled up tight in him. 

 

He kisses Erik, over, over, mouths slick with it, hands pulling at Erik’s backside to bring their hips together, his cock hardening in his slacks, in his underwear. Erik groans into it.

 

They rut against each other like teenagers, Charles shifting up into it, his legs wrapped around Erik’s waist, too impatient for anything else. The air is so close he can barely breathe. He feels Erik’s cock against his and it feels almost wrong, to say he’s missed this, something so trivial, sex, but God, he has. He’s missed the feel of Erik’s cock, that thickness, the heat of it.

 

He’s almost embarrassed, how close he is from just this. He moans, Erik’s tongue licking at the hollow of his neck, teeth at his collarbone.

 

“Keep going,” he says. He throws his head back as Erik reaches a hand down between them, shoves his way past Charles’ waistband; cries out as Erik fists his cock. “Erik,” he says. It tumbles its way out of his mouth, again and again, Erik Erik Erik. It’s been so long it’s all he wants to say.

 

“Come for me,” Erik says. He’s bent over Charles’ front, hand by Charles’ head propping him up. Charles drags him down to kiss.

 

He feels dizzy with it as he comes, spills over Erik’s fingers with moans pressed to the side of Erik’s face, his hips jutting upwards. His hand scratches nails into the back of Erik’s neck, he says, “Erik. Erik.”

 

Erik keeps moving, his breath ragged. Charles reaches down for the button of his trousers, desperate, needs to feel him. They both moan as Charles wraps a hand around Erik’s cock, so wet already; Charles jerks him and watches his face, the crease between his eyes, the slack way of his jaw.

 

He comes with his face pushed into Charles’ hair, groans low at Charles’ ear. Charles works him through it, thumbing over the head of his cock just to hear him whine.

 

Erik drops himself at Charles’ side, finished, exhausted. Charles shuts his eyes, lies there, the weight of Erik on him so foreign, now. He wipes his hand on the bedsheets; Erik watches him, does the same. God, what a mess they’ve made of each other, of their clothes. Charles’ sweat sticks his shirt to him.

 

“We should clean up,” he says. He runs his fingers through Erik’s hair, too short to grab a hold of, long enough to stick up in tufts. Erik breathes against Charles’ neck.

 

“I’d rather not move,” he says.

 

Charles smiles. He feels fit to burst.

 

“You stay here,” he says. He kisses Erik’s forehead. “I’ll get a flannel.”

 

Erik hums. He shifts to let Charles out from under him; he looks so tired, eyes half-shut, head against the pillow.

 

Charles hurries to his bathroom; kicks his trousers down his legs, his underwear. His shirt gets thrown somewhere near the toilet.

 

He stares at himself as he runs the tap. His mouth is wet, red; there’s a mark at his collarbone. He can’t help but grin at himself, come drying sticky on his stomach, into the hair at his crotch. He wants to laugh like a madman.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik is naked when Charles comes back through, clothes pushed off the edge of the bed. His eyes are shut.

 

He starts as Charles climbs onto the bed, mattress shifting, and Charles shushes him, says, “It’s me. It’s only me.”

 

Erik looks at him. He looks so small, so young and so old all at once. Charles can see each and every one of his ribs. He’s so thin he’s barely there. Charles shows him the flannel; he nods his head. Charles wipes him down.

 

“Do you just want to sleep?” he asks. There’s so much to talk about, so much to ask, but he looks at Erik, so tired in his bed, it all can wait. It can wait forever.

 

Erik smiles, soft. “I think sleep is all I can do,” he says.

 

Charles lays himself down beside him, flannel this flat noise as it hits the floor.

 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Charles says. He hugs himself to Erik’s front, tucked beneath Erik’s chin; they stick together with the heat but he doesn’t care, he couldn’t care.

 

 

 

 

 

This awful thought comes to him as he wakes, middle of the night, Erik’s face pushed into his chest. In twelve hours a Nazi Major will be here, in Casablanca, looking for someone with the resistance. And here, in Casablanca, is Erik.

 

 

 

 

 

He needs to get them out. They need to leave, now, they have to.

 

He kisses Erik awake, soft, and Erik hums into it. His hand rubs at Charles’ waist.

 

“I need to go see the saloon owner,” Charles says. Erik looks at him. “Just to apologise for leaving halfway through last night. I’ll be five minutes— ten, at most.”

 

Erik nods. Charles kisses him.

 

“There’s some fruit in the kitchen,” he says. “And some awful coffee. Or you can go back to sleep,” he says, watching Erik’s eyes slip closed. He looks as though he could sleep for weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s early, just past 7AM, and he goes knocking on Logan’s door. He can’t stay still, anxiety running him high, he’s not found Erik, after all this time, everything, just to let some Nazi take him away.

 

Logan answers. He’s still wearing half of last night’s suit, wrinkled white shirt, no tie. His hair is flat at one side from pillows.

 

“Christ, what the fuck do you want,” he says. “You better be here to explain exactly why you went AWOL last night.”

 

Charles says, “I need to leave.” He says it fast, says, “Casablanca. I need to leave. Today.”

 

Logan looks at him. His face is almost blank, eyebrow raised, half-frown. “You need to do what?”

 

The panic has Charles all but twitching in his skin. He’s been on the edge of vomiting for the past few hours.

 

“Please,” he says. “Please, Logan, you must know how to get out, you’ve been here years, you must— you have to know how to get out. How to get on one of those planes.”

 

He has to. Please, God, he has to.

 

Logan shakes his head, says, “Kid, you and I both know the only way out is a letter of transit. And it’s not like I’m the one handing those out.”

 

Charles wants to wail. He knows about the letters of transit, he’s been stuck here weeks, he knows how much people pay for them, the things people do for them.

 

“Listen,” Logan says. “If this is about that Nazi comin’ round later, I’ve already told you what to do. You’ll be fine. Calm the hell down.”

 

“No,” Charles says. “No, it’s not, it’s—”

 

He’s trusted Logan with his own past. He can trust him with Erik’s, now, can he not? Their future?

 

His shoulders drop, heavy. He says, “I know who the Major will be looking for.”

 

Logan looks at him. They stand on opposite sides of the doorframe. “Who?” he asks.

 

“My partner,” he says. He knows Logan will ask, beats him to it, says, “His name is Erik Lehnsherr. He was with the resistance in Poland, he— he escaped from a concentration camp. Came here.”

 

Logan doesn’t say anything. He stands there, stares, again, like he can’t believe what Charles tells him.

 

He rubs a hand over his face. “Fucking hell,” he says. “You know, you really are a lot more trouble than I had you pegged out to be.”

 

Charles forces a smile. The air is hot despite the autumn; he’s sweating and, God, he wants to get out of this place.

 

“So he’s here?” Logan says. “This Erik?”

 

Charles nods. “Yes. He’s next door.” He’s next door, asleep, big purple rings around his eyes. “Logan,” Charles says. Logan looks to him. “They’ll take him away again if we don’t get out,” he says. “They’ll torture him, stick him in another camp, they’ll—”

 

They’ll kill him, all over again.

 

Logan sighs. He runs his knuckles against his jaw, says, “I’ll try my best, kid, but I’m no miracle worker. I’m sorry.”

 

 

 

 

It feels like a nightmare. As though they are stuck in a maze, a haunted house. A submarine with a pinhole leak.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik is still asleep. Charles climbs in beside him, and just looks at him. He’s almost scared to blink in case Erik disappears.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s this awful faraway look in his eyes as he tells Charles what he’s seen. They sit on Charles’ bed, cross-legged, and Charles has a hand curled around Erik’s ankle. His face is so pale he looks almost dead; waxwork mummy.

 

“They’re butchers,” he says. He trails off, jaw a harsh line with its clench. Tears well up in his eyes and drop down his cheeks, his chin. He shakes his head, tiny movement, says, “They’re butchers.”

 

 

 

 

 

“How long have you been here?” Charles asks, watching Erik as he sits in the windowsill, smokes. “In Morocco?”

 

Erik flicks ash down onto the street. “Only a few days,” he says.

 

It had taken him months to get out of Europe, down through Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia. Across into Tunisia, Algeria; finally, Morocco, Casablanca. The place that feels like it could be the end of the earth.

 

“I’ve been here since the start of last month,” Charles says. Erik looks to him.

 

“And you haven’t managed to leave yet?”

 

Charles shakes his head. He almost starts sobbing there and then. He rubs at an eye with his fist. “No,” he says. “Hardly anyone leaves.”

 

Erik finishes his cigarette; stubs it out against the sill and gets up to dump the butt of it in Charles’ sink. Charles sits at his kitchen table, cold coffee, he tries to remember how many francs he has left, how much he needs to get them out, how much he needs to give to some grimy little policeman to get the dust and the desert out of his lungs.

 

“You haven’t told me why you came here,” Erik says. He drags the other chair around, sits himself down close enough for their legs to touch, elbow to elbow. “Why you left Paris.”

 

Charles looks to him. He smiles, soft, no teeth.

 

“I made a mistake,” Charles says. “One stupid mistake and I put everyone I cared about at risk. So they got me out.”

 

Erik’s fingers pull at Charles’, tug them out of their fist. He holds Charles’ hand. Charles’ throat feels as though he’s strangling himself from the inside.

 

He wipes at his eyes with the heel of his palm, can’t help himself from crying as he thinks about it, about them.

 

“Ruth and Gabrielle were taken,” he says, “they were taken and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing I did was enough. So I did more— I did more and just look where it got me.”

 

“They were taken?” Erik asks. Charles looks at him, his big sad eyes, and he nods.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice chokes in him, he says, “I tried. We printed newsletters, we spread information— I derailed a train and blew up a café and it did _nothing_ — nothing changed, we saved no one. I was useless.” He was useless. “I was useless and they’re gone.”

 

He got people killed. People were arrested and executed for what he did. And it didn’t bring back Ruth and Gabrielle.

 

Erik doesn’t say anything. He stands up and pulls Charles with him, hugs him tight, and Charles can’t hold it in. He sobs into Erik’s neck, hands bunched in Erik’s vest, one of Charles’, borrowed; he shakes in Erik’s arms and he’s so tired. The war has been going three years. It’s not fair. Why them? Why now? He wants to shout at the sky until it opens.

 

“It’s okay,” Erik says. He holds Charles with an arm around his shoulders, hand at the back of his neck, and Charles shakes his head, no, it’s not okay, but Erik says, “You tried, Charles. That’s all you could do.”

 

Charles feels his face crumple. His head hurts and he can’t stop; _he tried_. He cries for everything, all of it, everything that has happened since that day in September 1939. He cries for him and Erik, stuck in a desert, just waiting for the hangman to come.

 

“We have to leave,” he says, quiet. His face is wet, so is Erik’s neck, and he sniffs, wipes himself with the back of his hand. “We have to get out of this place.”

 

Erik strokes Charles’ hair away from his eyes, thumbs swiping his cheeks.

 

“We will,” he says. He smiles. “We’ll find a way. We’ll be back in Paris before the month is out.”

 

Charles pulls back. He looks up at Erik’s face. “Paris?” he says.

 

There’s a little frown on Erik’s face. He nods. Charles shakes his head.

 

“No,” he says. “No, Erik— do you think I came all this way just to go back?”

 

Erik’s eyebrows furrow, confused; he doesn’t understand.

 

“But we can go back together,” he says. He cups Charles’ face in his hands, says, “We can go back together and carry on the fight, join the resistance— we can help take France back. Kill the ones who took Ruth and Gabrielle, who took everyone else.”

 

“No,” Charles says. He can’t. They can’t. He watches Erik’s face fall, it breaks his heart, but he takes Erik’s hands from his face, holds his wrists, says, “Believe me, Erik, there is nothing good coming out of the resistance in Paris. I’m not— I’m not having our lives put at risk, all over again, just to print leaflets with crude cartoons on them.” He says, “I’m not going back to Paris.”

 

Erik looks at him. “What about the armed resistance?” he asks, and Charles laughs, incredulous. The armed resistance.

 

“There isn’t one,” he says. He throws his arms up at his sides, says, “No one cares. Everyone just goes on as if nothing is happening— it doesn’t affect them and they don’t care. It’s not like in Poland,” he says, desperate, “there’s no appetite to chase the Germans out with guns. All we had was a mimeograph, one woman making grenades. That’s it. That’s all we were.”

 

There was about a dozen of them in a flat in the Latin Quarter. A dozen of them in a flat in the 14th arrondissement. Everyone else, they just carried on. Everything happened and they just lined up and collected their daily rations. There were no guerrilla soldiers on the streets. There were no men and women with guns in forests.

 

Erik pulls his arms away. There’s this look on his face; he looks lost.

 

Charles reaches for him, says, “Erik,” but he steps back, away. He shakes his head.

 

“I’m not giving up,” he says. “Not after what I’ve seen. Not when I know what these people are doing.”

 

He’s still so beautiful and so righteous and Charles wants to slap him for it.

 

“We can get out,” Charles says. “Why on Earth did you come all this way just to go running headfirst back into it?”

 

“I was half-dead in Poland,” Erik says, this ugly snarl in his voice, and Charles moves backwards; chair scraping the floor as he backs into it. “I was hunted like a dog. I got out because I had to. But I got out knowing that I’d be going straight back to Europe, just as soon as I had the chance.”

 

“You can’t,” Charles says. He wants to grab hold of Erik but he stays where he is. He wants to curl himself in the corner like a child and pretend that none of this is happening, but he stays where he is. “You’ll die,” he says. “You can’t leave again.”

 

There’s this pathetic whine in his voice, this pleading, begging.

 

He says, “You can’t leave me again.”

 

He watches Erik’s face soften, the downturn of his mouth, the flare of his nostrils.

 

“You can’t make me choose,” Erik says. Charles wipes at his eyes, his stupid tear-filled eyes. Erik says, “I need to fight. I have to do something. I can’t abandon my people.”

 

Charles wants to scream.

 

“You did something and they caught you,” he says. “You escaped— this is a second chance. Another chance to live. You do anything like you did in Poland in Paris and they’ll kill you, they’ll put you up against a wall, make an example of you, you can’t— you can’t do that.” You can’t do that to me.

 

Erik shifts his weight from foot to foot, runs hands through his hair, he’s restless.

 

“And where is it you want us to go?” he asks. “If not home, where?”

 

Charles swallows. He knows what’s coming and he says it anyway. “New York.”

 

Erik looks at him; just looks. “New York,” he says. There’s this heavy malice in his voice, something like disgust curled in him. “And what are we to do there? Hide and pretend nothing is happening? Go to bars and get drunk and pretend that people aren’t being slaughtered in their thousands, across the ocean? You expect me to sleep at night knowing what I know and doing nothing about it?”

 

The silence is long. They look at each other, across the kitchen, and Charles feels himself sag, exhausted, he doesn’t want to fight. He loves Erik so; he doesn’t want to fight.

 

“You can tell people,” he says. “You can make as big a stink you want in America— tell them everything, make them do something. Wake them up. They won’t kill you for it there.”

 

Erik huffs a laugh, quiet. “And you think they will? Do anything?”

 

Charles shrugs, he doesn’t know, maybe.

 

“Is it not worth it to try?” he says. “You’ve tried fighting, and look what good it’s done. At least in New York you’ll be alive to tell people what you’ve seen. You go back to Europe, and— what? You kill a few more Germans? End up shot dead for it? What good does it do?”

 

What good did it do, when Charles derailed that train, when he threw that grenade? Were people saved because of it? Did it stop the war? It did nothing. Nothing they did was worth a thing.

 

Erik breathes. Charles watches his chest rise and fall with it. The thought rises in him that this argument might be useless, pointless, if they can’t leave, if that Nazi comes and finds Erik before Charles can get him out; get them both out.

 

“Please,” he says. Erik looks up to him. It feels as though he’s miles away. They’re not the same as they were three years ago. “Please let us try.”

 

He can see how Erik’s eyes are wet. He hates the world for doing this.

 

Erik says, “I’ll think about it,” and it’s good enough. It has to be.

 

Charles moves to him, fast as he’s moved in his life, and he kisses him. He holds Erik’s thick skull between his hands and he kisses him.

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t tell him about the Nazi Major. They shower together, stand under the spray until the water turns cold, and Erik smiles at him. Each time Charles opens his mouth to say it he finds he can’t. He doesn’t want to cause panic, not if he doesn’t have to.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s still supposed to work behind the bar tonight.

 

“It’s fine,” Erik says. He sits on the threadbare settee, legs folded up under him, stuffing his cheeks with grapes. Their argument lays forgotten, for now. “You can go to work. I’ll stay up here. Or maybe I can try my hand at roulette.”

 

The _no_ nearly shouts its way out. Charles swallows it. What if Erik is stood there, gambling, betting red or black, and a man in SS uniform walks in?

 

 

 

 

 

Logan is waiting for him, white suit, black tie, place just about to open for the evening.

 

“He still upstairs?” he asks. Charles nods. Logan nods back. “Good. Sturmbannführer Schünzel and his cronies arrived in town about two hours ago. They’ll be here at around eight.”

 

8PM. Three hours’ time. Charles breathes. It’s fine. It will all be fine.

 

He asks, “Any luck with letters of transit?”

 

Logan looks at him, awhile. He shakes his head. “As long as he’s upstairs it should be fine. ‘Far as I know they’re just here to look around the saloon, check out the clientele,” he says. “Nothing else.”

 

Charles feels sick. He’s had Erik back for one day, and he feels it in him, this fight, grinding of his jaw, he’s not letting Erik be taken away from him, not for anything, not by some madman in a black uniform.

 

 

 

 

 

Darwin doesn’t mention last night, and Charles is grateful for it.

 

He serves people, smiles at them, looks at the clock after every cocktail and it keeps getting closer, the room keeps getting fuller. He feels claustrophobic. Darwin asks if he’s okay, hand clenched around the neck of a champagne bottle, so tight it could snap. Charles looks up.

 

“Yeah,” he says. He nods, puts the bottle down. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little on edge.”

 

Darwin smiles. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’ll be over before you know it. Like gettin’ teeth pulled.”

 

 

 

 

 

The clock ticks over into eight o’clock and the world doesn’t stop. Everyone keeps drinking, they keep gambling. They keep asking for whiskys and sidecars and vodka sodas. The music keeps playing, piano, guitars, and it’s fine.

 

Charles sees Logan across the room, through the opening and into the next. The clock tells him eight-oh-seven.

 

What would they do, in New York, he thinks. He wonders if they’d have enough money to afford a place to live, if Raven’s friends are nice, if they could find work, if Erik could sleep, if anyone would listen, to all of the horrors happening, east.

 

Darwin elbows him. “Nazi, eleven o’clock,” he says. Charles looks; this quick jerk of his head. His stomach turns. He can’t do this.

 

“I can’t do this,” he says. Darwin looks to him.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Charles looks at him, that man across the room, jackboots, skull and crossbones at his collar, brimmed hat tucked beneath his arm; two men in grey around him. He feels this sick rage in him, this animal violence he’d never thought possible of himself, before all this; he wants to rip this man’s throat out with his teeth if it keeps him from Erik. He shakes his head.

 

“I mean I can’t do this,” he says.

 

Maybe if he goes, if he hides in the staff bathroom, like Logan had told him, those few days that feel like weeks ago. He snags the key from its hook.

 

He looks to Darwin, says, “I’m sorry. I need to— I have to go.”

 

Darwin just watches as he leaves the bar. He has to cross the room, packed with bodies, noise, and he stops as he all but shoulders into someone, feet like weights to the tiles. His head feels slow as he stares. Across the floor is Alex, black waistcoat, roulette wheel, and beside him, is Erik.

 

Charles feels the panic hit him like a wall. To his left is Erik and to his right is an SS-Sturmbannführer.

 

He mutters his apologies as he shoves past people, women in their dresses, men in their suits; Erik is wearing his clothes.

 

Logan finds him before he can reach Erik. Charles goes to move around him, he doesn’t have time for this, he has to get to Erik, get them out, anywhere, but Logan stops him, hand tight at Charles’ forearm.

 

“Will you calm the hell down?” he says, quiet hiss by Charles’ ear.

 

“Calm down?” Charles says. “You expect me to calm down when there’s a man who’d shoot me dead not twenty feet away?”

 

“He’s not looking for you,” Logan says. Charles looks at him. “You were right— he asked if I’d ever heard of an Erik Lehnsherr. So you’re fine. As long as you stop sweating and looking guilty as Hell: you’re fine.”

 

They’re looking for Erik. Charles knew, God, he knew, but having it said is a kick in his gut, fist in his chest. He looks over Logan’s shoulder and sees Erik putting money on red.

 

“You have to get us out of here,” he says. He looks at Logan, says, “Erik is here. He’s over there, Logan— you have to get us out before he’s seen.”

 

Please. Get them out of this Godforsaken desert.

 

Logan turns his head. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he says. “You said he was _up_ stairs.”

 

They’re stood in the middle of the room, reserved tables, Logan’s voice almost a shout.

 

“He was,” Charles says. He doesn’t know what else to say, what else is there to say? He’d get down on his knees and beg if he thought it would make a difference; he’d get down on his knees and pray.

 

“Christ’s sake,” Logan says. “Fine. Just— get him the hell out of this place. Go back upstairs, lock yourselves in, I’ll— I’ll figure something out.”

 

Charles could thank him a thousand times. “Thank you,” he says. “Logan, thank you.”

 

 

 

 

 

When he looks he can see the Sturmbannführer across the room, above the crowd, the pinched weasel face of him. He turns away.

 

He grabs hold of Erik’s sleeve as he reaches the table, the wheel. He’s sweating and he knows he looks like a madman.

 

“Erik,” he says.

 

Erik looks to him, his smile fading as he sees the look on Charles’ face.

 

“Erik, we have to go,” he says. Upstairs, outside, into the desert; anywhere but here.

 

Erik pulls him to the side, close to the wall. Away from the gamblers and the gambling. Charles knows Alex keeps looking at them, this furrow to his eyebrows, but he doesn’t have the time. They don’t have the time. The wheel clatters as it spins.

 

“What’s wrong?” Erik asks. He holds Charles’ wrists and shakes him, says, “Charles.”

 

Charles shakes his head. “There are Nazis here,” he says. He watches Erik’s face change, his flat mouth, cold eyes.

 

“Where?” he asks.

 

Charles wants to yell at him. “Where?” he says. “Here— they’re _here_ , in this stupid God damned saloon. We have to leave.”

 

He goes to grab Erik’s arm, pull him away, out, but Erik pulls back.

 

“Erik. Not now,” Charles says. God, not now. “Please.”

 

Charles recognises the look on Erik’s face, in his eyes, this bloodthirsty anger that’s always been part of the deal, but not now, they can’t have come all the way out to the desert just to be torn away again, just for Erik to get in one last shot, one more strike on his tally.

 

“Do you know who they are?” Erik asks. He looks to Charles, this clench in his jaw.

 

Charles nods, says, “Some— Sturmbannführer, I can’t remember his name—”

 

“Schünzel?”

 

Charles looks at him. He’s desperate. He’s so desperate that Charles nods his head, yes, because, yes, that’s the name Logan told him. Schünzel.

 

He watches Erik swallow. “Who is he?” Charles asks. Erik won’t look at him. “Erik.” Charles reaches a hand to his face, brings their eyes together, says, “Who is he?”

 

The rest of the saloon carries on around them.

 

Erik says, “He was one of the ones running the camp.”

 

His mouth twists, as if he were to cry, and Charles’ stomach sinks.

 

“He’s not alone,” Charles says. “There are others with him, you can’t— you can’t do anything.”

 

Erik shakes his head, lip curling in his sad half-smirk. “Yes I can.”

 

He moves to Charles’ side, to leave, walk away, but Charles turns after him, grabs at his sleeve and pulls him back, because no; no. This isn’t happening. The look Erik turns on him is awful, but he doesn’t let go.

 

“It’s suicide,” he says.

 

“You have no idea,” Erik says, and a woman across the table looks at them, Alex is still looking at them, but it doesn’t matter; Erik says, “You can’t understand, and I’m glad you can’t, Charles, I am, but I’m not letting this rat walk away— not when I have him in my sights, no guards, no fence.”

 

If Charles looks, he can see him; Schünzel. He and his men are sat around a table, speaking with Logan. Logan looks over, a glance, and he meets Charles’ eye.

 

All he can do is beg. “Please,” he says. He looks back to Erik. “Just come upstairs with me.”

 

The war has hardened him, everything he’s done and everything he’s seen, his soft edges have been flayed away; neither of them are who they were the last time they stood together, that platform and that train, and it breaks in him.

 

Erik holds open his jacket, Charles’ jacket, and Charles sees the shine of the blade. He’s got a knife. Charles could cry. He could tear his hair out and scream.

 

“I’m sorry,” Erik says. “I have to do this.”

 

Charles shakes his head, no, he can’t. “I can’t watch you kill yourself,” he says.

 

Erik smiles. “Then shut your eyes.”

 

Charles says all he has left. It’s all he has and he knows it’s not enough, not anymore, not now.

 

“I love you,” he says. He lets go of Erik’s sleeve. Erik looks at him.

 

“I know,” he says. “I know, and I love you, but I’m sorry. I have to.”

 

Charles can’t imagine what that man has done, skull on his uniform, the factory for murder.

 

Charles breathes. He has to do this.

 

He shoves Erik to the side, hard— into the table, over it, and there’s a commotion that comes with it.

 

The ball clatters to the tiles, chips knocked out of place; the people stand there, open-mouthed, shouting, and Charles can hear Erik’s cough as he walks away, his choked cry of Charles’ name as Charles pushes out of the crowd, out of the gamblers.

 

His lungs feel as though they’re in his throat. It’s the café all over again.

 

Darwin asks if he’s alright as he hurries himself back behind the bar, and Charles knows exactly what Logan keeps in the broken fridge to the left of the wine bottles, the wine rack. He’s seen it and he knows exactly what to do with it.

 

He pulls the pistol out from among the spare glasses, the sliced lemons. He stares at it in his hand. God has been absent all this time but Charles prays that there are bullets. He’d move Heaven and Earth for that man, that damned righteous man, and here’s the proof.

 

He sees Erik across the room, among the tables, this desperate look on his face. Charles steps out and points the gun straight at SS-Sturmbannführer Schünzel’s head.

 

“All of you,” he shouts. “Put your hands in the air or I swear to God this Nazi’s brains will be all over your entrées.”

 

The noise disappears in waves. The piano stops, the guitar, the too loud voices.

 

Charles is sweating. His hand shakes; he brings the other up, steadies himself, one finger on the trigger. He doesn’t look at Logan. He doesn’t look at Erik.

 

Schünzel looks at him. He looks like any other man, mid-forties. There’s this smile on his face, like Charles is funny, like all of this is funny, and he holds his hands up as he stands from his chair, the scrape of it hideous in the quiet. He’s feet away.

 

“Take your guns and put them on the floor,” Charles says. “Now.”

 

They could kill him in a second. He’d bet a million francs they’re a faster and better shot than him, never fired a gun in his life, and what is he to do about it?

 

“You’re very brave,” Schünzel says, “for a barman.”

 

Charles licks at his teeth. “Don’t think for one second I won’t do it. You think I haven’t killed a German before?” he says. “Because I have. And I will again.”

 

Everyone is watching. Darwin, Alex. Charles thinks of Alex’s big ideas, the _boom_ , and oh, he wishes.

 

“Guns,” he says. “Now.”

 

He watches them take the pistols from their waists. The three of them bend to set them on the floor, and Charles feels his legs, unsteady, lamb weak.

 

“Kick them over to me,” he says. There’s a harsh skid as three guns are kicked towards him, across the tiles. He breathes.

 

“Very good,” Schünzel says. “You now have my undivided attention.”

 

Charles could shoot him now. He’s a murderer and a madman, and all Charles has to do is pull the trigger. There’s no dragon to slay, just some slimy man in military uniform that will go down with one shot.

 

He says, “I want two letters of transit. And I want to get out of this place tonight.”

 

“And what makes you think I can give you those?” Schünzel asks. He raises his hands in this careless shrug. “What makes you think I would even consider it?”

 

“Because I’ll kill you if you don’t,” Charles says. He will. God knows, he will.

 

He can’t let anything happen to Erik. One day is not enough.

 

“You are a mouse,” Schünzel says. “You could not fire that gun if you tried.”

 

“You want to bet?” Charles asks. “You’re in the right place for it.”

 

Schünzel looks at him. Charles’ mind flicks to Madame, to Ruth and Gabrielle, to Carmen, Kitty, and he feels sick. Schünzel smiles.

 

The last time, the café, the grenade, time didn’t slow. It does, this time. Charles’ fear all but suffocates him.

 

He sees Schünzel reach behind him, waistband of his trousers, and he knows what comes next. He knows what comes next and he thinks he’s ready for it, maybe, just as long as he kills this one Nazi, just as long as Erik gets out of this desert, this heat-soaked nightmare, as long as Erik is safe.

 

He doesn’t get the chance.

 

There’s this movement to his left, man breaking through the crowd, woman’s glass knocked to the floor, the shattering of it this tiny crystal ringing, and Charles’ head screams at him, no; no.

 

He sees it, the fat blade of the knife in Erik’s hand. Schünzel has his pistol pulled and pointed at Charles, but Erik is there. He pushes himself into Schünzel, knocks the man off balance, sudden, winded, and there’s this heavy smack as the gun drops, hits the terracotta, there’s this moment Charles can’t breathe as he watches Erik fist a hand in Schünzel’s hair, slick with pomade, pull his head back. His knife presses into Schünzel’s neck. There’s this smug snarl to him.

 

“Ich glaube, du suchst nach mir,” he says.

 

The men in grey uniform move, teeth bared, hounds ready to kill the fox, and Charles shouts.

 

“Don’t you dare move,” he says, gun pointed between them. He glances at Logan, off to the side, and there’s this tight look on his face, and Charles would apologise, he would, but he’s not sorry, not if this works, not if this gets them away. He looks back to the men; Nazis. “Sit down,” he says. His voice loud, he says, “Either you sit or you lay dead on the floor, up to you.”

 

The men sit. Charles sees this grin on Erik’s face, he’s all teeth, this look in his eye that Charles has never seen, cruel, that bloodlust in him risen up to the surface.

 

His mouth right by Schünzel’s ear, he says, “You shouldn’t have followed me, Sturmbannführer.”

 

Schünzel moves, this aborted attempt to get away, but Erik holds him in place. Charles watches blood dribble out as the knife cuts, shallow. Everyone is watching and yet none of them do anything.

 

“Ich werde dich töten,” Schünzel says. It spits its way out of him.

 

“Ich denke nicht,” Erik says. His knuckles are white. “You’re going to give me and my partner two letters of transit, and you’re going to let us fly out of this shithole. Or I’ll slit you open like a goat in the temple.”

 

Charles looks at him. His ribs tighten, the fast happiness welling in him despite everything else, the Nazis, the gun in his hands, the knife at the neck of an SS-Sturmbannführer; there’s a way out, they can do this, they can do this, he thinks.

 

“You are mad if you think you will get away alive,” Schünzel says.

 

Logan steps forward. Charles’ eyes jump to him. He says, “I have two letters of transit.”

 

Charles stares. “You what?”

 

After all this— the sweat, the terror thick in him, the mess they’re in, Logan had their way out, and he didn’t give it to them.

 

“I didn’t before,” Logan says. “But I do now.”

 

Charles doesn’t understand. His arms ache.

 

Erik says, “They’ll get us out of here tonight?”

 

Logan nods. Schünzel swears, his nails digging into Erik’s hand at his neck, and he says, “You let them out of here and it will be the last of you, Howlett.”

 

Logan shrugs, lazy move of one shoulder. “So be it,” he says. “Looking at the position you’re in, I’d say your days might be numbered, too.”

 

There’s this heavy silence. Charles looks to Erik, the white of his hand around the knife, his veins, and maybe if this was four years ago, five, he would have asked Erik to stop, he would’ve said, hey, they have their way out, no one needs to die, but that’s not him, now. He looks at the uniform and he knows, everything this man has done and everything he may do. He thinks of everything this means to Erik.

 

To Logan, he says, “Is Darwin still there?”

 

Logan looks towards the bar. He nods.

 

Darwin’s voice is quiet. He says, “I’m here.”

 

Charles breathes. “I need you to pack me a suitcase.”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Darwin says. “Anything.”

 

“There’s a spare key to my flat on the hooks beneath the bar,” Charles says. He keeps looking down the nose of the gun, thinks of all the things he owns, says, “I want the journal on the desk and the two photographs beside it. Any clothes will do. My cash is hidden at the top of the wardrobe with the pillowcases.”

 

They’re doing it. They’re getting out. Charles hears the rattling of the keys and the footsteps, and there’s this lump in his chest.

 

“You cannot seriously think you are leaving this place,” Schünzel says. Spit drips down his chin, down to the blade.

 

“The next flight to Lisbon is at ten,” Logan says. “You’ve got plenty of time.”

 

Charles looks at Erik. He’s looking back, big eyes, and Charles thinks of Ruth and Gabrielle, all those roundups, those camps, and he nods his head. He feels like there’s someone pushing on his chest, deflating him.

 

“Do it,” he says. Erik doesn’t need to be told twice.

 

There’s this sick sound as he drags the knife across Schünzel’s neck. It’s too loud in the quiet, this wet shear, the _schink_ of cutting hair, and women scream as the blood comes, as Erik lets go, as Schünzel crumples backwards to the floor. The people scatter like pigeons.

 

The other men just sit, this gormless look to them, as though they cannot believe their eyes. Schünzel lays there, this black red blood pooling up under the collar of his uniform, skull and crossbones, running out onto the floor, Erik’s shoes; he chokes and he moves like a fish thrown from the river. His throat gapes open like a mouth.

 

Charles watches the rise and fall of Erik’s chest. The knife is still so tight in his hands.

 

“Go,” he says. Erik’s head snaps to him. “Go upstairs— go help Darwin. I’ll get the letters.”

 

Erik nods. He looks at Schünzel. There’s a sneer on him, and he spits. He leaves without a word.

 

“Logan,” Charles says. He’s sorry for the mess. All that blood. It keeps coming. The air smells of metal. “Where are the letters,” he says.

 

Logan pulls them from his jacket. Their tickets out of here.

 

“I’m sorry,” Charles says. He is. He wonders what this means for Logan, for all of them; where are the police, the Vichy men?

 

Logan makes a noise, half a snort and half a grunt. “I’ll sort it,” he says. “Luckily the Prefect of Police just happens to prefer me and a big wad of cash over the Germans.” He walks towards Charles, slow, papers in an outstretched hand, and Charles doesn’t know if he’s lying, if what he says is true, or if he and the saloon will end up disappeared. He says, “Give me the gun, kid. Go get your man and your suitcase. I’ll fix this.”

 

Charles could hug him. Any other saloon owner in this hellhole would’ve sold him to the wolves as soon as he’d opened his mouth to the word resistance. Charles gives him the gun. He takes the letters, looks Logan in the eyes. He walks away and doesn’t look at the body.

 

 

 

 

 

The police come through the front door as they leave through the back, through the kitchen, the _staff_ _only_ , and Charles stops as he hears their voices, shouting, French, a deer in headlights, and Erik grabs at his sleeve. His feet leave monster prints of blood everywhere he steps. Charles can see red at his fingers.

 

“Come on,” he says. “Charles.”

 

Charles knows where the airport is. His chest heaves as he runs, remembers the demonstrations on Armistice Day, 1940, and, oh, he has so many things to tell Erik. He’s yet to tell him of baby Kurt, how they share a birthday, how Emma heads up _Liberté_ , how he threw that grenade and killed twelve Germans. He’s sweating and it’s dark and his hair blows around him, and he can’t wait to get out of the heat.

 

 

 

 

 

He almost can’t believe it. Look at them— out of breath, on the run from Vichy police in Casablanca, Morocco; five years ago they were in the zoological gardens, in the saloon, in Harry’s, in Paris.

 

 

 

 

 

The airfield is almost empty, all the security called away, called to Logan’s, and Charles holds the papers high as they see the pilot, the plane, the man loading luggage.

 

“Wait,” he says.

 

The pilot gives them a strange look as he reads the papers, the letters of transit, but word hasn’t spread to him, yet. He lets them board. It’s only them and two others, a couple, older, and when Charles starts laughing, he can’t stop.

 

It hiccups in him, and Erik is looking at him like he’s half-mad, the couple won’t even look their way, sat in the row beside them, but Erik’s face cracks into a grin as Charles meets his eye.

 

“We did it,” Charles says. He grabs Erik’s hand and he holds it. He shuts his eyes and tilts his head back against the rest, these hysteric tears rolling down his cheeks, and he breathes. Erik holds on just as hard.

 

“We did it,” Erik says. “Thank you.”

 

Charles looks to him. He knows what the thank you is for. Thank you for letting me kill that man. For not stopping me slitting his throat open in the middle of a saloon.

 

Charles nods. He smiles. They’re not the same but maybe it will be okay. They’re hardened and war-jaded and Charles wishes none of this had ever happened, that they could go back, that they could live in another time, a simpler time, but they can’t, and he still loves Erik so much it burns up in him, and he thinks, maybe they’ll be okay, even if the world does go mad and never goes back.

 

 

 

 

 

He sees the police from the air, how they run onto the field, yelling. He smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _Lisbon, Portugal. November 1942._



The air is not as hot, here. Winter is on its way and they are by the sea, and for the first time in months Charles feels as though he can breathe; Casablanca feels like a fever dream, that limbo between staying in and getting out. And he got out. They got out. He could shout it to the moon, they got out!

 

He has enough money to pay for them a hotel for five days. It’s nice, cosy, and they arrive in the middle of the night, Sunday AM.

 

They don’t bother trying to push the beds together, two singles. Charles laughs as he thinks about it, that time in Marseille, Erik fallen between, and they spread the duvets out on the floor, this time, instead.

 

They’re quiet as they fuck. It feels like a victory, a celebration, and Charles holds on as Erik pushes into him, fast, restless, the first time in too long. He makes these noises that he can’t help, muffled by his wrist in his mouth, by Erik’s kiss, and when he cries it’s not sadness, not all of it. He’s overwhelmed and overstimulated and he’s missed this, how intimate it is, Erik’s cock hot inside him.

 

 

 

 

 

“I killed twelve Germans,” he says, when it’s morning, light just coming through, eight o’clock.

 

Erik looks at him.

 

“That’s the mistake I made,” Charles says. It still eats at him. He remembers how it felt, that righteousness, that feeling of look at me, I’m doing something, I’m resisting; how he thought Erik was dead, shot like a dog, how he hoped Erik would be proud.

 

“I don’t know how many I’ve killed,” Erik says.

 

Charles feels his nose smarting with tears just waiting to come. “It’s changed us,” he says. “The war. All this violence. I didn’t go to Spain because I was so scared of losing everything. And then this year I thought I had.”

 

He swipes at his eyes. He’s killed men and he still cries like a boy at every little thing.

 

“War always changes everything,” Erik says. His fingers brush Charles’, the two of them on the floor, facing one another. “Hundreds of thousands of men and women just like you have killed and been killed. In this war and the one before it. But life goes on.”

 

“How can it?” Charles says. “How can everything keep going when so much is wrong?”

 

Erik rubs the tears from Charles’ cheek.

 

“I’ve seen so much horror,” he says. “And I’ve heard of even more. Believe me when I say I wish things were different, but they’re not. Charles,” he says. “It’s okay. My father came back from France different, but I still loved him, he still loved us, my mother. I know you— I know what it must have been for you to do what you did, and how it must hurt you. But I still love you, too, for all that you are and all that you may have done.”

 

Charles kisses him. He doesn’t know what to say so he kisses him, hand curving around Erik’s neck, back of his skull.

 

“I love you,” he says. He’s seen Erik’s anger and all his blood-stained rage, and it doesn’t make him love him any less. He opens his eyes to Erik’s. “I don’t think I could bear it if I lost you again. Last night, I thought— I couldn’t let you kill yourself for that man, Erik.”

 

Erik brushes their noises together. One of his feet finds its way between Charles’ shins.

 

“And you didn’t,” he says. “We worked together. You were stupid and reckless; but so was I. I think we worked well as a team.”

 

He smiles, teeth, and Charles smiles back, wet, ridiculous.

 

“I’m glad you got to kill him,” Charles says, because he is. He knows what it meant. What it means.

 

Erik hums. “I did it for everyone in that place,” he says. “For my friends who didn’t make it out alive. For Tomasz who did.”

 

The quiet settles around them, comfortable; they’re safe here, for now, before more Germans come sniffing, looking, dust settling on the mess they made.

 

 

 

 

 

Erik says, “I’ll come with you to New York.”

 

He says it while Charles is brushing his teeth, says it like it’s nothing, like it’s the weather, and toothpaste spills its way down Charles’ chin.

 

“What?”

 

Erik looks at him, leant against the bathroom doorway. He smiles, small, reaching to brush the white from Charles’ chin.

 

“For a moment I think I forgot how much I loved you,” he says. “How much I needed you. But seeing you with that gun in your hands, Charles— I won’t lose you again. Maybe I can make the Americans listen.”

 

The happiness washes through him, he can’t believe it.

 

“Are you sure?” Charles says. He doesn’t want Erik to regret this, to hate him for it, in the months to come, to think, Christ, why did he agree?

 

Erik nods. “You were right,” he says. “If I go back, I die. Whether I got to kill any more Germans wouldn’t matter if it meant nothing— if it saved no one.” He shrugs. “So I guess I can try something else.”

 

Charles looks at him; the bags under his eyes, the wrinkles in his forehead.

 

They’re going to America. They’re going to be safe, an ocean away from all this madness.

 

Charles drops his toothbrush in the sink, and Erik moves forwards, first, beats him to it; kisses Charles, soft.

 

Charles holds Erik’s face in his hands. “We’re going to America,” he says. They’re going to live together, again, a flat, a bed; he can hear Erik play the violin, those sad winding songs that make him cry, give him goosebumps.

 

“We are,” Erik says. “God forgive us.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. _New York City, United States of America. December 1942._



There are Christmas decorations bright at every street they see. There are Hanukiahs, no yellow stars, no enterprise juive signs, no boarded up windows.

 

He holds the scrap of paper Raven had given him, those months ago, and they wait for a yellow taxi cab.

 

New York is loud and it’s busy and it’s grey. Charles looks at Erik, lit up from the lights around them, and he smiles. They’re safe. After so long, so much, they’re here, America; they’re safe.


End file.
